Donald Trump makes Pearl Harbour joke during meeting with Japanese PM in Washington
Donald Trump made an awkward gaffe during a press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Washington today (Thursday).
President Trump met with Prime Minister Takaichi, who took office in October, at the White House on Thursday, where he discussed the timing of recent strikes on Iran.
He said the operation had been kept tightly under wraps to maintain an element of surprise.
US President Donald Trump and Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s prime minister, shake hands during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, March 19, 2026. Tensions between the US and Japan over the war in Iran remained evident as President Donald Trump hosted Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, even as he praised Japan for answering his call for support in the war. Photographer: Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images
During the exchange with reporters, Trump made a remark referencing Pearl Harbor while speaking to a Japanese journalist, prompting laughter in the room.
Takaichi, seated beside him in the Oval Office, appeared uncomfortable and shifted in her seat following the comment.
‘Who knows better about surprise than Japan. Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbour?’
‘You believe in surprise, I think, much more so than us,’ Trump continued, ‘And we had a surprise, and we did, and because of that surprise, we knocked out the first two days, we probably knocked out 50% of what we, and much more than we anticipated doing.’
‘So if I go and tell everybody about it, there’s no longer a surprise, right?’
The attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 dragged the USA into World War II, when the Japanese destroyed the American fleet, which was docked in the Hawaiian base on December 7, taking the United States completely by surprise.
