“May God bless the memory of those who perished in Toledo,” the president said, referring to a city more than 100 miles away from Dayton, the location of a massacre on Sunday. “May God protect them. May God protect all of those from Texas to Ohio. May God bless the victims and their families. May God bless America.”
The speech followed a weekend of violence in two states. After a massacre on Saturday left 22 dead and dozens injured at a Walmart in El Paso, Americans awakened on Sunday to the news of another mass killing overnight, this time an attack in Dayton’s entertainment district that left nine dead and 27 injured.
Trump wasn’t the only politician to trip over the details. On Sunday night, former Vice President Joe Biden, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, misstated the locations of both shootings.
At a fundraiser, Biden referred to “the tragic events in Houston today and also in Michigan the day before,” according to a pool report. Michigan is to the north of Ohio, and Houston is about 700 miles from El Paso. Biden later corrected himself, according to the report.
For his part, Trump walked offstage Monday morning without taking questions from reporters or acknowledging his mistake. It was not immediately clear if the president had been improvising or reading the Teleprompter script. A transcript of his remarks released later by the White House showed the phrase “in Toledo” struck through.
Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, said Monday that she had heard Trump would visit the city on Wednesday. “But I’ve not gotten a call,” she told a reporter. “And you know, he might be going to Toledo. I don’t know.
Over in Toledo, Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz also issued a statement: “It’s pretty obvious the president misspoke this morning, and that happens to all of us from time to time,” he said. “Nevertheless, Toledo is happy to accept his prayers, even if they were meant for Dayton.”
The president’s mistake drew criticism on social media, including from Dayton-area residents like Michelle Brown, 55.
“To not even be able to get the name of our city right when it’s been such an awful weekend for the country?” she said in an interview. “It’s absolutely appalling.”
And some critics pointed out that Biden had erred as well.
No politician or president is immune to flubs, and Trump has had his share. Just last month, for example, he suggested during an Independence Day speech that American soldiers “took over the airports” during or shortly after the Revolutionary War. No airports, or airplanes, existed at that time.
And last fall, Trump referred to Paradise, California, which had been devastated by wildfires, as “Pleasure.” He added, “What a name,” and repeated the mistake before other officials corrected him.
In his remarks Monday, Trump said, “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy — these sinister ideologies must be defeated.” He also used Twitter to call on Republicans and Democrats to work together to strengthen background checks for prospective gun buyers and pass new immigration laws.
Democratic presidential candidates have sought to connect the El Paso shooting to Trump, arguing that he has encouraged extremism with what they called hateful language. And on Monday, one of those candidates, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, swore in a terse tweet after Trump’s “Toledo” comment.
Ryan followed that up with a series of tweets. “Dayton. 9 lives lost. 27 people wounded,” he wrote in one. “A community reeling in pain, anguish and anger. I see you.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.