President Donald Trump, 79, is once again under fire for what critics are calling a glaring mental lapse — just days before a critical face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
On Tuesday morning, the president unleashed a Truth Social rant about media coverage of his upcoming talks with Moscow. Buried in his post was a reference to “Leningrad” — a name the Russian city of St. Petersburg hasn’t gone by since 1991.
“If I got Moscow and Leningrad free, as part of the deal with Russia, the Fake News would say that I made a bad deal!” Trump wrote.
Dementia? pic.twitter.com/8sOMP9hwNh
— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) August 13, 2025
The problem? Leningrad hasn’t officially existed for 34 years, renamed after the fall of the Soviet Union in a historic vote by its residents.
“It’s shocking — it’s like saying you just visited the Roman Empire,” scoffed political historian Marcia Grant. “Anyone who lived through the ‘90s remembers the name change. This is not obscure trivia.”
Social media lit up with speculation about the president’s mental state. “He’s long gone at this point,” one viral post read. Another user quipped, “Maybe he’s negotiating with the ghosts of the Cold War.”
Trump’s slip-up hit a nerve because of his long and complicated history with the country. In 1987, Trump and his then-wife Ivana toured construction sites in Moscow for a possible Trump Hotel and even visited Leningrad itself — four years before its renaming. Those plans never materialized, but Trump continued courting Russian business interests for decades, famously bringing the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013.
This isn’t Trump’s only recent stumble. Last month, he attacked Joe Biden for appointing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — forgetting he made the appointment himself in 2017. A day earlier, he falsely claimed his uncle taught the Unabomber at MIT — despite Ted Kaczynski never attending the school.
And on Monday, the president told reporters twice that he’d be traveling to Russia for the summit — forcing Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to clarify he meant Alaska. “Perhaps there are plans in the future to travel to Russia,” she said, before doubling down: “Right now, the president is focused on ending the war Joe Biden started.”
The Alaska meeting, set for Friday, is being billed as a potential breakthrough in the war in Ukraine. Putin invaded in 2022 during Biden’s presidency, prompting sweeping sanctions from the West. Trump insists he can end the conflict quickly, but critics warn his recent missteps could weaken his negotiating hand.
Former National Security Council official Paul Hernandez summed it up bluntly: “You can’t afford to mix up basic facts when you’re sitting across from Vladimir Putin. Every slip is leverage for Moscow.”
Whether Trump’s next destination is Alaska, Moscow — or the long-gone Leningrad — remains to be seen.
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Who ever wrote this hit piece of propaganda the author of this article is a pompous as liar , I too watch his comments they made sense millions of people with common sense.
More TDS BS…
the media is the idiot again….he was just saying if in that time he did that the media would be all over him
Keep talking all you aholes. You have to blame your stupidity
Oh please, He’s sharper than most twenty yr olds. BS all the time. Just because Biden was seni
funny how ageism is different for trump than it was for biden.
Just one trump lie after the other and his MAGA base doesn’t care.