On 20 May 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump held a rally at the Energy Aviation Hangar in the Pennsylvania borough of Montoursville. Early on in his speech, the president encountered difficulties with the lighting in the hangar glaring in his eyes and asked that the lights be turned down, saying: "You know, I thought that was the sun in my eyes; it's these stupid lights, these people ... I mean what are they doing? Is there any way they can turn these lights down, folks?"
Trump then offered some additional words about the sun before resuming his speech, words that prompted reactions ranging from confusion to the creation of derisive memes:
The full statement uttered by Trump was often cited as the following:
"You know, I thought that was the sun in my eyes; it's these stupid lights, these people ... I mean what are they doing? Is there any way they can turn these lights down, folks? Crazy. You've got a thing called the sun; we like the sun better than the artificial non-sun."
However, some reports of the speech did not present Trump as saying anything about a "non-sun" (or "not sun"), but rather exclaiming that "we like the sun better than the artificial nonsense." The event was captured on video, but no consensus seems to exist among viewers about what the president said — some hear "non-sun" while others hear "nonsense":
The White House did not immediately respond to our request to verify exactly what Trump said.