The Thai Enquirer changed its name on social media to the Thigh Enquirer in order to mock American President Donald Trump .
As The Inquisitr previously reported, Trump spoke to a small group of employees and leaders at the Whirlpool Corporation Manufacturing Plant on Thursday. While talking about American manufacturing, he blundered over the Southeast Asian country’s name, pronouncing it “Thighland.”
A few moments later, he corrected his mistake. He faced fierce mockery and criticism on social media, with some questioning his mental acuity, while others joked about the location of this newly identified nationality.
The Thai Enquirer joined the fray, changing the name of its publication and creating a short video of what it is calling “Thighgate” to explain why the mispronunciation wasn’t the most offensive part of the president’s speech.
We made a short explainer video of how Thais see #Thighland -gate and how the mispronunciation by Trump wasn’t the worst part of his speech to Thais. #Thailand #Trump #????????????? pic.twitter.com/mHgsOFMX8Y
— Thai Enquirer (@ThaiEnquirer) August 7, 2020
The video showed a clip of Trump’s speech, followed by comments by Dinesh D’Souza who defended Trump’s delivery, saying that only Americans used the pronunciation “tie-land.”
Given D’Souza’s comments, the paper joked that the country would be considered “Thighland” from now on before pointing out that Trump praised the leader of Thailand, Prayut Chan-o-cha. The controversial general led a military coup in 2014, dissolving the Senate and government of the country, and established a junta called the National Council for Peace and Order to lead the nation.
The outlet also responded to a tweet from D’Souza, an American-Indian author and staunch Trump defender, in which he called Trump’s pronunciation accurate.
“Leaving aside our provincial argot, no honest person will deny that across the South Asian continent, Thailand is pronounced ‘Thighland.’ So if an entire subcontinent—over a billion people—says it his way, Trump can’t be entirely wrong, can he?” he said, in a tweet that can be seen here .
“I guess our input doesn’t really matter if all the South Asians call us Thighland, we must be #Thighland,” the outlet wrote, in a response that can be seen here .
This followed an earlier tweet in which the outlet explained that the was “laughably” wrong in his defense of the mispronunciation.
The paper’s decision to change its name was met with praise from some followers, including Vietnamese journalist Sen Nguyen and Reuters journalist Patpicha Best.
The controversy comes just days after the president stumbled over the pronunciation of another location, this time the U.S. National Park, Yosemite National Park in California.
While signing into legislation a bill that would dramatically increase funding for public spaces, Trump called the park “Yo-semite.”