The 80-year-old American president was in the midst of a freewheeling impromptu press conference<\/a> alongside the Ukrainian leader when he began extolling the virtues of American defensive weaponry after what he said was an attack on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had 111 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan. They were shot at the aircraft carrier over a period of about one hour. 111 missiles going to a very expensive ship, and every one of those missiles was knocked down, pretty much most by patriots, but by other means also,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The president appeared to be referring to an attack against the American carrier by Iranian forces earlier this year, but instead attributed the attack to Japan \u2014 a country that has not fired a shot in anger against the United States in nearly a century. While the Japanese armed forces once menaced American aircraft carriers and other naval assets during World War II, the two countries became close allies after Japan\u2019s defeat in that war and remain so today.<\/p>\n Moments later, Trump also mixed up Zelensky \u2014 who was sitting beside him \u2014 and Russia\u2019s strongman leader Vladimir Putin<\/a> when he asked reporters if they had \u201ca question for President Putin,\u201d prompting the room to erupt in laughter, at which point Trump attempted to recover by repeating the prompt and suggesting he\u2019d take the reporter\u2019s question to the Russian leader.<\/p>\n The Putin-Zelensky mixup by Trump came almost two years to the day that Trump\u2019s predecessor, President Joe Biden, infamously introduced Zelensky as \u201cPresident Putin\u201d<\/a> during an appearance at the 2024 NATO summit in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n The president\u2019s confused comments about Japan and the identify of the leader with whom he was sitting came just hours after he declared that the shaky ceasefire his negotiators had struck with the actual Islamic Republic of Iran<\/a> in exchange for sanctions relief was over after Tehran attacked shipping in the Strait of Hormuz earlier in the week.<\/p>\n Speaking at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Ankara, Trump called Iranian leaders \u201cscum\u201d and vowed that the U.S. would \u201cprobably hit Iran hard again tonight\u201d after American forces struck targets in Iran and Iranian forces retaliated against American bases in Kuwait and Bahrain on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Speaking alongside NATO chief Mark Rutte, Trump said that Iran was led by \u201csick people\u201d, adding: \u201cI don\u2019t want to deal with them anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Ukraine's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2285204322...jpeg\")
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) meets with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the NATO Summit at Bestepe Presidential Compound in Ankara, on July 8, 2026. (Getty)<\/p>\n