WASHINGTON, D.C. — During a morning press conference about the state of the war in Ukraine, President Donald Trump suddenly claimed that 2 and 2 added together equaled 4, despite having no evidence whatsoever to back it up. Now, experts sounded the alarm on the president's bold statement.
"You can't just go around claiming to have the answer to complex math equations without demonstrating how you came to that conclusion," said former CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter. "It is very irresponsible for a commander-in-chief to throw numbers around willy-nilly like this."
Mathematicians said while there are indeed edge cases in which 2 + 2 = 4, making a blanket statement to that effect was irresponsible because it ignores the world of modular arithmetic and abstract algebra where "2" can be whatever you want.
"If you decide that 2 is actually 947, then 2 cannot possibly be added to itself to equal 4," said respected Harvard mathematician Ivan Schaefer. "The president is way off base here if he thinks he can simply assert that 2 + 2 = 4 without evidence."
Leading philosopher and actor Terrance Howard, who famously lost his role as War Machine in Iron Man 2 due to incorrect math, argued that all conventional math is wrong and can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean, which makes Trump not merely incorrect but a dangerous liar. Howard, a self-perceived expert in the fields of arithmetic, philosophy, and biology has gone so far as to argue that Trump may not even exist.
"I've never met Trump," Howard said while appearing as a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience. "So how am I supposed to take him seriously when he says 2 + 2 = 4 if he won't even meet with me and prove that he's real?"
Trump had yet to respond to the pushback on what he perceived as the basic foundation of mathematics a person learns in preschool.
At publishing time, Trump received more criticism after mentioning, without evidence, that Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States.
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