President Donald Trump’s fitness for office roared back into question on Wednesday, July 8, after the 80-year-old delivered a cascade of stumbles on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, repeatedly calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by the name of his fiercest adversary, Vladimir Putin, and describing an attack on an American warship as the work of the “Islamic Republic of Japan.”

During a bilateral meeting with Zelensky on the second day of the gathering at the Bestepe Presidential Compound, Trump turned to reporters and mistakenly invited a question for Putin instead, drawing laughter before he attempted to recover.

Trump asked the assembled press, “Do you have any questions for President Putin?” As reporters corrected him, the president repeated the prompt: “Do you have a question for President Putin, not Zelensky. What would you like to ask him, because I’m going to ask him that question.” Zelensky watched beside him throughout.

A Warship, Missiles and the Wrong Country

Trump then recounted a recent strike on the USS Abraham Lincoln, telling reporters, “We had 111 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan.”

Trump said the missiles had targeted the aircraft carrier over approximately an hour, with Patriot systems and other defenses intercepting nearly all of them. The strike was actually conducted by Iranian forces, not Japan — a close American ally whose last military engagement with the United States occurred in World War II, more than 80 years ago. Japanese forces menaced U.S. aircraft carriers during World War II, but the two nations forged a durable partnership after the war’s end.

Trump also garbled the name of the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), calling it the “JCPOC.” At one point, straining to hear a reporter’s query about whether he was prepared to close the skies over Ukraine, Trump replied simply, “Close what?” Secretary of State Marco Rubio intervened to clarify the reporter’s question for the president.

Trump also boasted about his popularity on a social media platform, initially calling it “Tic Tac” before correcting himself to TikTok. He has attended multiple press events at the summit, including a solo news conference.

Iran Ceasefire Declared Over

Trump used the summit to declare the 60-day ceasefire with Iran “over,” a day after U.S. forces struck more than 80 targets on Tuesday in response to an Iranian assault on commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The memorandum of understanding Trump signed in June had established the truce while negotiators pursued a broader deal covering Iran’s nuclear program; that deadline is set to expire in the middle of August.

Trump described Tehran’s leadership as “scum” and “sick people” who would use a nuclear weapon if they possessed one. He also restated his contested ambition to control Greenland, dismissed Spain as “hopeless,” and pressed the alliance to shoulder a larger share of NATO’s defense burden. There was better news for Kyiv: Trump announced the United States would allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot air defense systems.

Trump reserved his sharpest words for Spain, which had declined to let the United States use its bases to strike Iran. He branded the country “hopeless” and “a terrible partner in NATO” that doesn’t “participate” or “pay,” then went further at his news conference, declaring, “I don’t want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain” — including, he added, visits. Rutte tried to temper the moment, noting Spain had lifted its defense spending to roughly two percent of GDP, but Trump pressed on, threatening to pull U.S. troops from both Spain and Italy for sitting out his Iran campaign. The office of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez treated the outburst as business as usual, saying bilateral relations benefited both countries.

Asked when Putin would end the war in Ukraine, Trump said, “I don’t think I’ve ever asked him that question,” then predicted the Russian leader would say he wanted the fighting stopped.

Echoes of Biden and a Charge of Hypocrisy

The episode carried an unmistakable irony. Trump built much of his political case against his predecessor around Joe Biden’s verbal missteps, and the Putin-Zelensky slip landed almost exactly two years after Biden made the identical error. At the July 2024 NATO summit in Washington, Biden introduced Zelensky as “President Putin,” and referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump” during different events.

Trump, now the oldest person ever inaugurated, insists he is in robust health and often touts “acing” cognitive tests — which are, in fact, screening tools for dementia. His most recent medical report describes him as being in “excellent health” and fully fit for duty.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the performance, saying the president delivered a marathon, high-energy showing and commanded every room at the summit. Critics were less generous. Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and former Republican, said the president had “something deeply wrong” with him, arguing that identical gaffes from any other occupant of the office would have triggered a national crisis.

A separate video circulating from the summit appeared to show Trump slumped and motionless, prompting claims he had fallen asleep; defenders countered that his arm could be seen moving, as though he was writing. The White House has dismissed such criticism, but Wednesday’s cascade of slips guaranteed the questions about the president’s stamina would not fade quietly.