President Donald Trump was in the middle of introducing a Republican candidate he had just endorsed when he appeared to draw a blank.
Standing before law enforcement officials on Long Island Friday, the president praised his choice to challenge New York Attorney General Letitia James, only to realize he could not remember her name.
“Where the hell are you… Ma’am? Where are you?” Trump called from the podium, trying to play it off as he scanned the audience and pointed to someone but never uttered the woman’s moniker.
The awkward moment quickly became ammunition for critics who have spent years questioning Trump’s age and mental acuity, with the president’s latest gaffe reviving questions of whether his mental lapses deserve greater scrutiny.
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The woman Trump struggled to name was Saritha Komatireddy, a Republican challenger to James and a former federal prosecutor. Trump had just told the crowd, “You have a person running, who I just met today for the first time, and I’ve endorsed her running for attorney general.”
Komatireddy’s résumé is considerably more extensive than the president’s brief introduction suggested.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she went to law school and spent more than a decade prosecuting leaders in al-Qaida, ISIS and Mexican drug cartels, according to her campaign. As a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York, she handled cases involving terrorism, cybercrime, narcotics, money laundering, fraud and foreign public corruption.
Komatireddy also served as chief of staff of the Drug Enforcement Administration and has argued before federal courts, led national security investigations, and advised on foreign affairs, criminal law, and cyber policy.
She graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School and began her legal career clerking for Brett Kavanaugh before his rise to the Supreme Court. She is now a partner at Holtzman Vogel, teaches at Columbia Law School and is a mother of four.
Trump’s remarks came as he attacked James, whom he called a “dirty cop.”
James successfully prosecuted a civil fraud case against Trump and his company in 2024 that resulted in a penalty of more than $450 million after a judge found Trump and his company had inflated asset values. That decision was later reversed on appeal.
Meanwhile, the latest episode was hardly Trump’s first verbal stumble.
In 2024, Trump said Nikki Haley’s name when he was clearly talking about Nancy Pelosi and her response to the Jan. 6 riot.
At a NATO summit in July, he referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin” before appearing to catch himself. He also referred to Iran as the “Islamic Republic of Japan” and repeatedly mispronounced TikTok as “tic tac.”
Trump’s “tic tac” mistake came as he bragged about his popularity on the platform, telling reporters, “You know who’s number one on tic tac? I am. I’m number one on Tik Tok and all I talk about is how bad communism is.”
The White House defended Trump after the NATO summit rather than directly addressing the individual gaffes.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “President Trump delivered a marathon, high-energy performance at the NATO summit, holding four separate press availabilities plus a solo press conference and taking unscripted questions from reporters on a wide range of topics.”
“The President commanded every room, gave our allies some much-needed tough love, and left the summit with a stronger NATO and more united free world,” she added.
Trump, who is 80, has frequently mocked former President Joe Biden over verbal slips and memory lapses. At one point, after Biden mistakenly referred to Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump,” Trump sarcastically responded, “Great job, Joe.”
Social media users quickly returned the favor after Trump forgot Komatireddy’s name.
One person wrote, “Breaking: Dementia patient forgets name.” Another asked, “And the Republicans are OK with this???”
A third mocked the president more broadly, writing, “Awesome. Quite the picture of health with frequent napping and memory lapses, this is a man who needs to go away.”
The episode also recalls an earlier Trump slip from 2022, when he appeared to combine the names of two Ohio Senate candidates, Josh Mandel and JD Vance, while discussing his endorsements.
“We’ve endorsed Dr. Oz. We’ve endorsed JP, right? JD Mandel, and he’s doing great. They’re all doing good,” Trump said before adding, “I think Vance is doing well.”
At the time, Trump had also claimed he had “aced” a cognitive test and suggested Biden should take one.
Trump’s most recent physical, conducted in May at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, produced a far different assessment. His physician, Dr. Sean Barbabella, reported that he “remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and overall physical function,” according to Forbes.
