President Trump said Wednesday that he told Chinese President Xi Jinping about the US cruise missile attack on Syria while the two were savoring “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen.”
The odd aside came during an interview with Fox Business in which the president related details about their two-day diplomatic tete-a-tete at Trump’s swanky Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“We’re now having dessert, and we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen. And President Xi was enjoying it,” Trump said, setting the scene for the moment he broke the dramatic news to his Chinese counterpart.
Trump then told Xi he had just gotten a message “from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded, what do you do? And we made a determination to do it, so the missiles were on the way.”
Then he broke the news to Xi.
“And I said, ‘Mr. President, let me explain something to you.’ This is during dessert. ‘We’ve just fired 59 missiles,’ all of which hit, by the way, unbelievable from, you know, hundreds of miles away, all of which hit.”
The president went on to praise US technology.
“Our technology, our equipment, is better than anybody by a factor of five. What we have in terms of technology, nobody can even come close to competing,” Trump said.
But Trump then misspoke on Fox, saying the US attacked Iraq instead of Syria.
“So what happens is I said, ‘We’ve just launched 59 missiles … heading to Iraq,’” Trump said.
Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo then corrected him, asking if he meant “heading to Syria.”
“Yes, ‘heading toward Syria, and I want you to know that,’” Trump said, referring to Xi.
After hearing the news, the Chinese president was speechless for 10 seconds, Trump said.
“And then he asked the interpreter to please say it again. I didn’t think that was a good sign,” Trump said.
“And he said to me, ‘Anybody that uses gases … anybody that was so brutal and uses gases to do that to young children and babies, it’s OK’ … He was OK with it,” the president said.