On one of the rare occasions that President Donald Trump stuck to the script, he says the script failed him.
Trump's recitation of highlights from American history in his Fourth of July speech detoured into a mashup of war and centuries.
He segued from the War of Independence to modern times and back to the War of 1812 so fast that it seemed he thought George Washington's forces seized airports, ages before airplanes existed though he did not state that was his belief.
"The teleprompter went out," Trump said Friday. "Right in the middle of that sentence it went out." He added: "I knew the speech very well so I was able to do it without a teleprompter."