From PBS NewsHour.

President Donald Trump complimented the "beautiful English" of President Joseph Boakai of Liberia, a country whose primary language is English, during a White House meeting on Wednesday.

According to both the CIA World Factbook and Encyclopædia Britannica, Liberia’s official language is English. More than two-dozen other languages are spoken in the African country, which was established by the American Colonization Society and first settled by formerly enslaved people from the United States in the 1820s.

Trump’s comments during the meeting were “embarrassing,” Michelle Gavin, the former senior director for Africa on the National Security Council during the Obama administration, told the New York Times. She said the president’s public remarks “gave me the impression there was very little preparation for this meeting.”

Meanwhile, Trump administration officials pushed back on commentary that the president’s comments were disrespectful. Massad Boulous, the State Department’s senior adviser for Africa and Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law, said in a statement to multiple news outlets that he was in the meeting, and everyone was deeply appreciative of the president’s time and effort. The continent of Africa has never had such a friend in the White House as they do in President Trump.”

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