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Social media was set ablaze by an alleged Donald Trump gaffe. During a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday, February 24, Trump talked about how great of a First Lady Melania Trump was, and the audience gave Melania a standing ovation. However, he later congratulates someone named Mercedes.
Many social media users and media outlets thought that Trump was referring to Melania as Mercedes and unleashed a barrage of trolls.
However, this is false, as it was later revealed that Trump was mentioning Mercedes Schlapp, the host of CPAC, who was also present in the audience. It was proven through an inspection of the viral video clip and a tweet from Schlapp herself.
Donald Trump did not call Melania Trump 'Mercedes'
On Saturday, February 24, on the decisive day of the South Carolina primaries, former United States President and current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump arrived in Washington, D.C., to deliver a keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). However, Trump's speech initially went viral for all the wrong reasons.
At one point in the speech, the former president talked about how loved former First Lady Melania Trump was. As the crowd erupted in a standing ovation for the former First Lady, Trump said:
"People love her. People love her...Oh look at that Wow! Mercedes that's pretty good!"
Many social media users interpreted this as Trump referring to his wife as Mercedes. People trolled the former president and made memes about the whole situation. Many from the opposite end of the political spectrum decided to take this as an opportunity to rile against the constant trolls being made of Joe Biden's frequent gaffes. Here are a few X (formerly known as Twitter) reactions to the clip.
However, after finishing the first part of the statement, towards the end of the video, Trump could be seen acknowledging someone in the audience before stating, "Mercedes, that's pretty good!". He was actually referring to the host of the conference, Mercedes Schlapp.
The allegations of Trump calling Melania "Mercedes" became so big that even media giants like The Independent released a new story titled 'Donald Trump calls wife Melania ‘Mercedes’ during a live CPAC speech.' The same story was screenshotted and retweeted by Mercedes Schlapp herself, thus confirming that Trump was referring to her. Mercedes also added the caption:
"Fake News at its finest 😂."
Social media users began filling up the comment sections of those who initially tweeted out the allegation with explanations of what the truth actually was. Some netizens who claimed to dislike Trump even criticized them for posting fake news. Here are a few of the comments under progressive political commentator Luke Beasly's tweet claiming that Trump was in cognitive decline.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump swept up the South Carolina GOP primaries, successfully beating out his only remaining competition, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, in her own state. After 99% reporting, The Associated Press stated that Trump took 59.8% of the votes, while Nikki Haley managed to obtain only 39.5%.
Despite the setback, Haley did not seem to follow in the footsteps of her fellow competitors like Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Ron DeSantis, who all pulled out and endorsed Donald Trump. Instead, Haley vowed to keep on running against Trump for the position of 2024 GOP presidential nominee.
