President Trump fumed against the “fake news media” on Friday night when he resurfaced a blunder former President Obama made on the 2008 campaign trail.
“When President Obama said that he has been to ’57 States,’ very little mention in Fake News Media,” Trump tweeted. “Can you imagine if I said that…story of the year!”
He then tagged Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham. Obama has returned to the campaign trail in recent weeks to criticize Trump and his policies, which Ingraham discussed on her Friday night show.
Obama’s blunder, which Ingraham also resurfaced on her show, came in Beaverton, Ore., in May 2008 when he was the leading contender for the Democratic Party’s nomination, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.{mosads}
“It is wonderful to be back in Oregon,” Obama said. “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it.”
Speaking with reporters after the rally, Obama was concerned that he had accidentally also misstated the number of potential victims following a cyclone in Burma.
“I hope I said 100,000 people the first time instead of 100 million,” Obama said, according to the Times. “I understand I said there were 57 states today. It’s a sign that my numeracy is getting a little, uh.”
Obama had been on the campaign trail for 16 months at that point and he was rebuked in the media and online for his remark, the Times noted.
Suitably Flip blog, a campaign website at the time, unveiled an American flag lapel pin with 57 stars.
They began selling the pins to mock the Harvard-educated then-senator from Illinois over his mistake.
Obama’s blunder was also seized on by conspiracy theorists who falsely claimed that he was not born in America or was Muslim.
Trump was part of the “birther” movement against Obama, claiming for years that the former president was born outside of the U.S. Obama eventually released his birth certificate to counter the claims.
Trump acknowledged that Obama was born in the U.S. during a campaign stop in 2016.
Some at the time also alleged that Obama was not referencing the U.S. when he said he had visited the 57 states but the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which has 57 member states.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) pushed the theory on the House floor in 2011, according a report at the time from Mediaite.
“And I know the President made the mistake one day of saying he had visited all 57 states, and I’m well aware that there are not 57 states in this country, although there are 57 members of OIC, the Islamic states in the world,” Gohmert said. “Perhaps there was some confusion whether he’d been to all 57 Islamic states as opposed to all 50 U.S. states. But nonetheless, we have an obligation to the 50 American states, not the 57 Muslim, Islamic states.”
Trump’s complaint about the media on Friday night came amid a series of tweets questioning the nearly 3,000-person death toll in Puerto Rico after a pair of hurricanes pummeled the island last year.