When speaking at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters on July 23, President Donald Trump reiterated a lot of his common talking points, like how leaders have supposedly told him that the United States was “dead” before he took office again “less than two years ago” but now is “the hottest country anywhere in the world.”
He also complained about how he gets “no credit” for the amazing things that he’s done, and explained that he likes to call Democrats “Dumocrats.” Overall, his critics found his speech to be absolute nonsense.
But he also said something new that’s getting a lot of attention on social media: “We had the American dream until we came along.” And people are basically saying, Yeah, we know.
This seemed to be a mistake, but critics felt it was actually really accurate.
Trump: We had the American dream until we came along pic.twitter.com/wQjbsFhlD5
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 23, 2026
Trump was obviously not trying to say that the American dream seemed achievable until he became president, but it definitely came out sounding that way—and lots of critics online actually agreed with him for once.
“First time I’ve ever been able to agree with him,” someone commented on X. “Very true, we had it far much better before he and his admin came along.”
“Thanks for the honesty,” another person wrote. “Well, he’s not wrong,” a third commenter added. And a fourth critic said it’s actually the “truest thing he’s ever said.”
People also said they’re well aware that the Trump administration destroyed the American dream.
Fact check: True. https://t.co/qBwVsBjkm5
— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) July 23, 2026
Trump didn’t have to (inadvertently) tell them in order for them to notice. “Yeah man, we know,” a critic wrote in response to Trump’s embarrassing mistake.
“Now people are struggling to survive thanks to trump and company,” another person argued. “trump is living out the saying, the rich get richer while poor get poorer.”
“Now we have the American nightmare,” someone else said.
Comments about cognitive decline also came up.
A lot of critics seem to think Trump’s mistakes are getting more and more frequent, and perhaps more obvious as well. He did, after all, recently confuse Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler with rapper Nicki Minaj. When these kinds of mistakes happen, people always mention dementia.
There are a decent number of people who think the truth is unintentionally coming out more now that Trump is getting older (though that doesn’t explain why Vice President JD Vance often makes similar verbal gaffes that are later used against him).
“Donald Trumps frontal lobe is rotting so bad now that he keeps accidentally telling the truth,” one commenter wrote on X.
And someone else said, “Grandpa can’t read his notes properly,” adding that it seemed to be getting close to his “nap time.”
Unsurprisingly, after the awkward mistake went viral, multiple people pointed out that it would be a great clip for Democrats to use in their campaign ads. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press team was quick to react to the blunder on social media. “Rare moment of truth from the President,” the governor’s team wrote in response to the clip.
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