Nine of Donald Trump's most concerning recent gaffes

Former American President Donald Trump is never far away from a headline or two, but this seems to have been ramped up even more of late as the number of gaffes he's dropping grows at quite a rate.

In the past five months alone, there have been numerous moments where he's dropped an apparent clanger - with a handful of instances from the weekend just gone alone (February 24-25).

It comes as Trump repeatedly calls out current President Joe Biden for his age and 'incompetency' ahead of the upcoming US election on November 5 later this year.

Here are the 9 of the most recent times Trump has dropped a complete howler in reverse chronological order.

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks during an election night watch party at the State Fairgrounds on February 24Win McNamee / Getty Images

1. Saying the wrong voting date

When addressing America, he is reported to have said: "We need you to get out and vote to set the stage for November. Go vote - November 27. Remember this, that’s a date that is very important."

But the Michigan primary is not in November, but is in fact on Tuesday (February 27), and the general election is on November 5.

2. Backing Joe Biden

Another one from the weekend to forget for Trump - and in this one he seems to back Joe Biden.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is reported as having said: "Biden, he's more experienced, more predictable, he's a politician of the old formation. But we will work with any US leader whom the American people trust."

After that, Trump then reportedly said during a speech: "He (Putin) did announce the other day that he'd much rather see Biden as president, and I agree with him."

3. Slamming the voting system used in Florida

On Tuesday (February 20) last week, Trump was fact-checked on Fox News by Laura Ingraham when speaking about voter fraud.

During the Town Hall, Trump said "You automatically have fraud" when it comes to using mail-in voting systems.

Ingraham replied by saying "There is mail-in voting in Florida and you won huge”.

Trump beat Biden in Florida by around 371,686 votes.

Trump replied: "When you go into a voting place, like you go into one in a properly run state, they look at you, you give voter ID, you give all sorts of identification... It would be very hard to cheat [on] a mass scale."

4. 'Supply change'

Trump got a common economic term completely wrong in an interview on Newsmax at the start of February.

He claims America would be 'finished' if Biden is reelected, and in an attempt to explain his point, Trump said: “Look at even things like supply change. Things we never even heard about, you never heard that term."

He is, of course, referring to the term 'supply chain'.

5. 'Sollest smallest problem'

This one was towards the end of January, ahead of the New Hampshire primaries.

In a speech, he appeared to utter a completely incoherent sentence, saying: ".. which is incapable of solvin’ even the sollest smallest problem. The simplest of problems, we can no longer solve. We can’t do anything. We are an institute in a powerful death penalty. We will put this on."

6. Describing second term as 'dictatorship'

Towards the end of 2023, Trump stoked fresh controversy when posting an image on his social media platform Truth Social.

The image came from a J.L. Partners survey for the Daily Mail that asked 1,000 voters to use a word to describe what Trump and Biden would want from a second term.

Some of the main words from that for Trump came back as "revenge", "power", "economy" and "dictatorship", which he then shared himself.

7. Lying on the witness stand in a fraud trial

This one certainly raised eyebrows at the start of November - as Trump was caught out lying on the witness stand during a fraud trial.

During proceedings, he told prosecutors he was too "busy in the White House" to be involved in preparing his 2021 financial statements, yet Biden was in office at the time.

He was then challenged, with prosecutor Kevin Wallace saying: "Just to clarify, you weren't president in 2021, correct?"

Trump, clearly realising the error of his ways, replied: "No, I wasn't."

8. Calling Hamas 'hummus'

Hamas is an Islamist militant group based in Palestine that wants to create an Islamic state in place of Israel and is at war with Israel in Gaza which has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

Hummus is a Middle Eastern dip, spread or savoury dish made with chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice and garlic.

Throughout a speech in October, not long after Hamas launched its first attacks on Israel, Trump continued to mispronounce the group's name.

9. Saying wind turbines killing whales 'in numbers never seen before'

At a rally in South Carolina at the end of September, Trump went on a bizarre rant about off-shore wind turbines and whales.

It's rooted in a climate sceptic conspiracy theory and he said turbines are driving whales "a little batty" and killing them "in numbers never seen before".

It came not long after Trump praised UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for rolling back several key UK climate change promises.

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