Trump struggled to read US constitution, expose says: 'It's like a foreign language'

Tom Embury-Dennis
US President Donald Trump reads an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership prior to signing it in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, January 23, 2017: Getty
US President Donald Trump reads an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership prior to signing it in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, January 23, 2017: Getty

Donald Trump struggled to read aloud the US constitution, a new book claims.

The incident, according to reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, came during filming for an HBO documentary in which living presidents, as well as judges and lawmakers, read from the historic document.

Stumbling over the text, Mr Trump allegedly blamed people in the room for his mistakes and complained: “It’s like a foreign language.”

The revelation, detailed in Mr Rucker’s and Ms Leonnig’s A Very Stable Genius, comes just days after the US president appeared to stumble and slur his way through a scripted address about the Iran crisis.

Among many false claims and exaggerations, Mr Trump told Iran its "campaign of terror, murder, mayhem, will not be 'tolerited' any longer".

Named after Mr Trump’s self-declared intellectual brilliance, the book, excerpts of which have been published by The Washington Post, reveals his litany of missteps and willingness to break long-standing norms since becoming president in 2017.

According to the authors, Mr Trump barely knew of Pearl Harbor, wrongly told Indian president Narendra Modi his country did not border China, and asked the State Department to help him change a law banning Americans from bribing foreign officials for business deals.