Over the summer, Donald Trump gave a speech about his future plans for the US military, which included a curious element: the former president promised to create an “Iron Dome” for the United States in a second term.

The Republican never got around to explaining why this was a priority, which was a shame because it was a profoundly strange idea. Like us discussed shortly afterthe purpose of an “Iron Dome” is to protect against short-range missiles. Unless the GOP nominee is worried about Canada or Mexico launching a surprise attack, the United States should probably focus on other national security priorities.

I’ve long assumed that Trump supported the idea because he thinks the words “iron” and “dome” sound great.

However, the former president did spent months portraying his desire to develop a “missile defense shield”. Earlier this year, for example, during a campaign event in New Hampshire, Trump said referring to a proposed shield and those who would oversee it, “These aren’t muscle guys over here (pointing to his arms), they’re muscle guys up here (pointing to his head).”

he added“And they calmly walk up to us and ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. They only have 17 seconds to figure it out, right? Boom. GOOD. Missile launch. Woosh. Boom.”

What did that mean? Eleven months later, I still don’t know.

It didn’t seem like Trump’s rhetoric on the subject could get any dumber, until it did. noted HuffPost:

No, really, that’s what he said.