Ex-president Donald Trump told a cold-blooded joke about the widow of a rallygoer killed by a would-be assassin to a group of megadonors, a leaked audio tape revealed.
In the 12-minute clip obtained by the Guardian, Trump recalled his efforts to raise funds for three victims shot during a failed assassination attempt at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally this summer. The audio, leaked from an August fundraising dinner in Aspen, Colorado, finds the former president riffing on the family of Corey Comperatore, who was killed at the event, and downplaying the damage.
“We put out a GoFundMe and we raised more than $6 million for the group that got hurt, which is essentially three people,” Trump said, adding that Mar-A-Lago club members raised an additional $1 million. Trump got quippy while discussing his interaction with Comperatore’s widow, Helen.
“The wife, this beautiful woman, I handed her the check – we handed her the check – and she said, ‘This is so nice, and I appreciate it, but I’d much rather have my husband.’ Now, I know some of the women in this room wouldn’t say the same,” Trump joked. “I know at least four couples. There are four couples, Governor [Greg Abbott], that I know and you’re not one of them. At least four couples here would have been thrilled, actually.”
The comment is an extended riff on statements Trump made that same month during another campaign rally. Trump, who was reportedly slow to call Comperatore’s widow, wasn't satisfied with roasting his dead supporters and their loved ones. He also hurled xenophobic insults at immigrants from every corner of the world.
Trump told the group a debunked story about ex-convicts from the Democratic Republic of the Congo coming to the U.S.
“We said, ‘Where do you come from?’ They said, ‘Prison’," he shared. "‘What did you do?’ ‘None of your f—king business what we did.’ You know why? Because they’re murderers.”
“These are the toughest people. These people are coming in from Africa, from the Middle East. They’re coming in from all parts of Asia, the bad parts, the parts where they’re rough, and the only thing good is they make our criminals look extremely nice,” Trump continued. “They make our Hell’s Angels look like the nicest people on earth.”
Elsewhere in the recording, Trump referred to Kamala Harris as "nasty" member of the "radical left."
"If she wins it’s going to be a disaster," he said. "Thank God she's supposed to be horrible at debating."
