Donald Trump has a lot to learn about insects.
The 79-year-old president gushed that Iran’s drones are falling from the sky just like an imposing number of butterflies do—a phenomenon that he seems to have pulled from thin air.
“Drones Dropping Like Butterflies,” the president posted on Truth Social on Saturday, triggering double-takes across the platform with his clashing juxtaposition of an image of stunning blue butterflies flitting in the air next to burning drones plummeting toward the sea—two things that are not at all alike.
Trump gave the analogy a test run in a Thursday post on Truth Social, where he bragged that the U.S. had “completely destroyed” three Iranian “warships” amid an attack in the Strait of Hormuz. He noted that the American forces also shot down drones that then plunged into the ocean “very much like a butterfly dropping to its grave!”
Dying or dead butterflies sometimes do fall from the sky, and may fall in extreme cold, but they tend not to tumble out of the sky like blasted drones.
Trump’s often odd word choices, syntax, and situational descriptions are among the behaviors that have raised concerns about his cognitive stability among medical experts and the American people.
Trump followed up the flying butterfly image with another AI post showing an American battleship blasting five Iranian drones out of the sky. The caption simply read: “Bye Bye, Drones.”
Winging it again, Trump posted an AI image of 159 Iranian ships at sea waving giant flags, which is supposed to be the “Obama/Biden” era, and contrasted it with the same ships at the bottom of the ocean to demonstrate what be believes is his own administration’s military superiority.
As much as Trump has enjoyed bringing dead butterflies into his war metaphors, he’s far less interested in them when it comes to policy.
His administration has repeatedly delayed protections under the Endangered Species Act for Monarch butterflies, which are at risk of extinction. Monarchs do need protection, but they have to wait behind more than 100 other species that also need help, the Trump administration said during the president’s first term in the White House.
