President Trump, angered by Israel and Iran lobbing attacks against one another after publicly agreeing to a ceasefire he brokered, deliberately dropped the F-bomb on live TV Tuesday when asked by a reporter about the tenuous agreement.
“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f—- they’re doing,” Mr. Trump said at the White House before an early morning flight to the NATO summit at The Hague. “You understand that?”
The president leaned forward for emphasis and enunciated clearly while dropping his verbal bomb.
While blue language is common behind the scenes in any administration, it was a rare example of Mr. Trump or any other White House official deploying profanity in public on camera.
A C-SPAN camera caught Mr. Trump’s remark to reporters live on the South Lawn. Cable networks also broadcast the moment without bleeping out the profanity.
On social media, the reaction was mixed. Many people on X cheered the president’s language.
“Just when you can’t love Trump enough he drops an F bomb on live TV,” said one post.
Wrote another poster, “WHOA! Trump dropping the F bomb while being interviewed before boarding Air Force One this morning woke me up more than my coffee.”
Others on social media taunted the president.
“Iran and Israel humiliated Trump so he dropped the F bomb on TV this morning,” one person posted.
Mr. Trump did express frustration that the ceasefire had been violated so quickly, and he directed most of his ire at Israel.
“Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’d never seen before. The biggest load that we’ve seen. I’m not happy with Israel,” he said.
While Mr. Trump’s profanity created a stir, it wasn’t the only time an elected official in Washington has used foul language in public.
In 2010, then-Vice President Joseph R. Biden told President Obama, “This is a big f——— deal” as Mr. Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in a White House ceremony. Microphones picked up Mr. Biden’s remark.
(When Mr. Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, Mr. Obama tweeted back, “This is a BFD.”)
On the Senate floor in 2004, then-Vice President Dick Cheney and liberal Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont engaged in some verbal sniping that ended with Mr. Cheney telling the lawmaker to “f—- yourself.”
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.