Trump claims he is ‘genius’ for realising ‘us’ is spelled the same as ‘US’

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Donald Trump bemoaned the fact that he was never described as “genius” after revealing to his followers that he had recently realised that the word “us” was spelled the same as “US”.

The former president questioned whether anybody else had ever thought to make the connection before, as he addressed supporters in New Hampshire on Monday, amid several ongoing criminal investigations into his conduct during his time in office.

During his rambling speech, Mr Trump compared himself to Nelson Mandela and later backed Jesus Christ to be the next Speaker of the House.

Speaking about his dealings with French president Emmanuel Macron, he said: “Macron, nice guy, he’s for France – I’m for us.

“You know, you spell us right? You spell us U-S. I just picked that up. Has anyone ever thought of that? A couple of days [ago) I’m reading and it said us. And I said, you know, if you think about it, us equals U-S.”

To cheers and chants of “USA, USA” he continued: “Now if we say something genius, they’ll never say it, you know, we get 25, 30, 40, 50, 80,000, 100,000 people to the speeches. They’ve never said Trump’s a great speaker.

“I’ve never heard it… I said to my people, do you think they’ll ever acknowledge [it]… I must be doing okay. Except I’m a very handsome person. So I guess a lot of you want… They want to sit look like a beauty pageant. It’s amazing.”

Mr Trump  has forged on with his plans to retake the White House in the 2024 election, and filed his name as a candidate in the 2024 election on Monday ahead of a rally in Derry.

The former president remains at the centre of four active legal investigations. The Department of Justice continues to prosecute him for his handling of classified US secrets and the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

He also has now seen two of his 2020 campaign legal attorneys, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, plead guilty to crimes in a Georgia probe into the 2020 election — they are expected to testify on behalf of the state against Mr Trump and other co-defendants.