Is Donald Trump dealing with dementia? The US President’s another geography fail just days before his meeting with Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. In a Truth Social rant, Trump pledged to “free Leningrad” – a name that hasn’t existed since 1991.
Two days after he twice said he was ‘going to Russia’ for his Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump used a Soviet-era name to describe Russia’s second-largest city as he attacked a former adviser on social media. Writing on Truth Social to complain about “very unfair media” coverage of his upcoming summit with the Russian president, he said the press would even go so far to say he’d made a “bad deal” even if he reached an agreement to free “Moscow and Leningrad”.
“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.
The US president appeared to be unaware of one small detail: The city he called “Leningrad” is actually called St. Petersburg and has been since city residents voted to ditch the Soviet-era name in June 1991.
Within minutes, critics pounced on the blunder, calling it a glaring sign of memory lapses, with some openly speculating about dementia. Others couldn’t help but recall Trump’s failed attempts to plant his real-estate flag in Russia around the time of the name change.
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Back in 1987, Trump and then-wife Ivana toured Moscow for a possible Trump Hotel project and even visited Leningrad — four years before the city’s renaming. “Trump mentioning Leningrad is wild, considering the city hasn’t existed since 1991,” one social media user quipped. “He’s long gone at this point.”
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Those plans fizzled, but Trump continued to court developers in Russia and even allowed the Miss Universe pageant to be held in Moscow in 2013.
The latest geographic gaffe comes just hours before Trump is set to meet Putin in Alaska for high-stakes talks on Ukraine war.
Is US President Dealing With Dementia?
In July, Trump lambasted Joe Biden for appointing Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chair — forgetting he himself made the appointment in 2017. Days earlier, he bizarrely claimed his MIT professor uncle had taught Ted Kaczynski before he became the “Unabomber” — despite Kaczynski never attending MIT.
And on Monday, Trump twice insisted he would be traveling to Russia on Friday, forcing press secretary Karoline Leavitt to clarify that the summit will, in fact, be in Alaska. A White House spokesperson later insisted, “Joe Biden started this brutal war, and President Trump is trying to stop the killing.”
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 came just days after Biden warned of the impending assault and vowed crippling sanctions in retaliation.
“Perhaps there are plans in the future to travel to Russia,” Leavitt diplomatically offered, sidestepping Trump’s slip.