One Humiliating Detail In Trump’s Special Passports Is Making Him Look Especially Out Of Touch

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Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s commemorative passport design has critics convinced that he doesn’t know what passports are meant to be used for. Trump unveiled the special edition passport design via a Truth Social post and suggested that it includes a message that is both a greeting and a warning at the same time: “Welcome, but be good!”

Of course, people immediately had questions, like who does Trump think United States passports are even for? In a Truth Social post on Friday, June 26, Trump shared an image of the passport and captioned it with, “The U.S.A.’s New Passport, which says, ‘Welcome, but be good!'”

People couldn’t believe he really put “welcome” inside a passport.

Welcome, where exactly? Does Trump not realize that you don’t use a U.S. passport to travel to the U.S.? Did he think he was designing visas?

On X, Fox News also announced the limited-edition passports, boasting that they were created to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. In the comments, critics made fun of Trump for seemingly not knowing what a passport is. They also questioned who he is welcoming.

“Welcome?” one critic wrote. “Passports are to LEAVE THE COUNTRY GENIUS.”

Someone else questioned, “So he doesn’t understand that passports are issued to americans?” Just in case Trump really doesn’t understand the basics of what passports are and how they work, another person wrote, “Does he realize passports go to American citizens and they use them to go to other countries?” Oof.

Some people actually tried to explain Trump’s logic.

Or, at least, what they thought his logic was when the passports were created. After the White House shared a photo of the new passport design and captioned it with, “PATRIOT PASSPORT,” someone responded, “Do y’all think that Trump realizes that foreign visitors don’t use a US passport?”

But some people tried to argue that Trump’s welcome message wasn’t meant for foreign visitors. “The message is not for foreigners, it’s for US citizens,” one person wrote in Trump’s defense. Understandably, people had questions about this, though. “So Trump is welcoming US citizens and telling them to be good?” someone else wrote back.

Several others argued that Trump really did mean to tell U.S. citizens to “be good” both at home and abroad. But does that explain the whole “welcome” thing? However, several others who defended him speculated that the passports were designed for people who moved to the U.S. and became citizens.

The fact that people were trying to justify this message actually shocked critics.

While some Trump defenders tried to argue that his message was intentional and made sense, many others just didn’t see it. To them, it read like an obvious mistake. “Can’t believe there are people on here defending his obvious mistake,” someone commented. “Welcome, but be good to citizens? No. He has immigrants on his brain and messed up.”

Critics saw it as a reminder that Trump “doesn’t know much about how anything works.” Not everyone who applies for or renews a passport in the coming months will receive the limited-edition Trump passport.

According to People, this edition of the U.S. passport is only available at the Washington Passport Agency. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told the publication that there will be a “limited number” of these special edition passports available.

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Paige Sheffield (she/her)