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Confused Trump, 79, Forgets Who President He Installed Is

The president appeared to forget who holds the power in Venezuela.

Even President Donald Trump seems to be struggling to keep track of the sheer number of countries he’s waged war with lately.

Trump, 79, appeared to forget who the leader he installed in Venezuela was while speaking on Monday—just over two months after he directed the United States military to kidnap the country’s former president, Nicolás Maduro.

“Venezuela, who’s been great, by the way, the relationship with Venezuela has been fantastic,” Trump said during a news conference regarding his shuttering of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for a $200 million renovation.

“The president has done a really good job. We get along with him really well,” Trump added.

The acting president, Delcy Rodríguez—who was Maduro’s vice president and has led the country since a military raid that saw Maduro captured and flown to the U.S. to face trial—is a woman. Rodríguez assumed presidential powers after Maduro’s capture in January.

Previously, Trump has sung the praises of Rodríguez, a snub to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who went out of her way to gift the president with the Nobel Peace Prize medal she won for her role in opposing Maduro’s government.

When presented with the prize, the inscription read, “in Recognition of President Trump’s Principled and Decisive Action to Secure a Free Venezuela.” The note refers to the Jan. 3 raid in which Maduro was seized. “The Courage of America, and its President Donald J. Trump, will Never be Forgotten by the Venezuelan people.”

Trump, however, seems to have forgotten who’s in charge of the Latin American country he set his sights on late last year. What he hasn’t seemed to forget is the country’s oil.

Last week, Trump told NBC News that while he did not want to discuss whether he would like the U.S. to seize Iran’s oil, he confirmed that, “Certainly people have talked about it.”

His comments came as the price of oil skyrocketed to more than $100 a barrel last week as the war with Iran brought shipping through the crucial Strait of Hormuz to a standstill.

Indeed, Trump and Israel’s war on Iran is presently a key focus. The president launched strikes on the country in coordination with Israel beginning on Feb. 28, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the process.

Trump’s misgendering of Venezuela’s president wasn’t his only gaffe during Monday’s press conference. He also appeared to out Florida Rep. Neal Dunn’s grim health diagnosis while seated beside a visibly distressed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

Trump asked Johnson, “What was the diagnosis?” to which the squirming Johnson replied: “I mean, I think it was a terminal diagnosis,” which was reportedly met with gasps in the room.

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“He would be dead by June,” Trump declared.

“Ok, that wasn’t public,” Johnson cut in. “But yeah, OK, it was grim, that’s what I was gonna say.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.

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Laura EspositoBreaking News Reporter

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