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President Donald Trump threw away his prepared remarks at a Thursday event in West Virginia — no, really, he literally threw them away — and brought back some of his most classic off-the-prompter statements from the 2016 campaign trail.

Specifically, the president recalled comments he made about Mexican immigrants being drug dealers and “rapists” when announcing his bid for presidency in 2015. “Remember my opening remarks at Trump Tower when I opened? Everybody said, ‘Oh, he was so tough’ and I used the word rape,” Trump began. “And yesterday, it came out where this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before. They don’t want to mention that. So we have to change our laws.”

The president was seemingly referring to a caravan’s journey along the U.S.-Mexico border that has garnered media attention from TV networks. His comments indicated a deep unawareness of what’s actually happening, however: the caravan is an annual activist-led, pro-migrant trip from Honduras to the U.S.

Journalists documenting the journey, while simultaneously monitoring Trump

’s remarks on Thursday, were forced to correct the president on Twitter and across the airwaves. “I’ve been with the caravan for 12 days,” BuzzFeed News reporter Adolfo Flores wrote, “and haven’t seen or heard of anyone being ‘raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before.’”

As networks assessed the president’s latest divisive comments with reporters on the ground in Mexico, Twitter erupted in absolute shock that Trump would claim such bizarre falsities (almost as if this hasn’t already happened).

[image via screengrab]

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Tags: 2016, Border, Donald Trump, election, mexicans, Mexico