Speaking at a campaign rally in Reno, Nevada on Wednesday, Donald Trump broke a cardinal rule of politics: Pronounce your location correctly.
“Ne-VAAAH-dah,” one video captures Trump telling the rally crowd, incorrectly.
“No!” the crowd screams nearly in unison.
“And you know what I said?,” Trump continues. “I said when I came out here, I said: Nobody says it the other way, it has to be Ne-VAH-da. And if you don’t say it correctly—”
He pauses. Trump appears to think the crowd is mocking the subject of his anecdote, so he clarifies.
“And it didn’t happen to me! It happened to a friend of mine,” he says. “And he was killed.”
Watch below:
Here’s Trump mispronouncing Nevada while insisting on pronouncing it correctly. pic.twitter.com/89qIM7oRUd
— Jim Dalrymple II (@JimDalrympleII) October 6, 2016
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), a vocal opponent of Trump’s who will be leaving the Senate in January, clarified the correct pronunciation for him:
If Trump wants to come down from the penthouse his daddy bought him to lecture us on Nevada, he could at least pronounce it correctly.
— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) October 6, 2016
Trump told us we pronounce our state wrong; then he refused to take stance on Yucca.
It’s pronounced Nev-AD-a and Yucca Mountain is dead.
— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) October 6, 2016
Trump certainly isn’t alone in his error. Pronunciation guides for the state pop up every presidential election. Here’s one from 2008:
