April 12, 2017

Trump Brags About Eating the “Most Beautiful” Chocolate Cake During Syrian Missile Strike Decision

Then forgets which country he just bombed.

Alex Brandon/AP; Cake: phxzoonorth/iStock

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Recounting details about his decision to launch missile strikes on a Syrian air base last week, President Donald Trump took several moments during a Fox Business interview that aired Wednesday morning to enthuse about the “most beautiful” chocolate cake he enjoyed at his Palm Beach resort with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump was entertaining the Chinese leader at Mar-a-Lago when he ordered the military strike.

“I was sitting at the table, we had finished dinner,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. “We’re now having dessert—and we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen—and President Xi was enjoying it.”

Bartiromo then said it was “brilliant” that the missiles were “unmanned.”

“It’s so incredible. It’s brilliant,” Trump agreed.

Then Trump appeared to momentarily forget which country the United States had attacked last week, naming Iraq instead of Syria.

“So what happens is I said, ‘We’ve just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq, and I wanted you to know this,'” Trump said in the interview. “And he was eating his cake. And he was silent.”

“Syria?” Bartiromo corrected.

“Yes, heading toward Syria,” Trump said. He followed up by mentioning Xi finished his dessert.

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THE BIG PICTURE

You expect the big picture, and it's our job at Mother Jones to give it to you. And right now, so many of the troubles we face are the making not of a virus, but of the quest for profit, political or economic (and not just from the man in the White House who could have offered leadership and comfort but instead gave us bleach).

In "News Is Just Like Waste Management," we unpack what the coronavirus crisis has meant for journalism, including Mother Jones’, and how we can rise to the challenge. If you're able to, this is a critical moment to support our nonprofit journalism with a donation: We've scoured our budget and made the cuts we can without impairing our mission, and we hope to raise $400,000 from our community of online readers to help keep our big reporting projects going because this extraordinary pandemic-plus-election year is no time to pull back.

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