Donald Trump appeared more distracted than usual in his campaign speech Saturday night in the battleground state of Wisconsin, and seemed to bizarrely blame American immigrants for a fly buzzing around his podium.
He ricocheted from topic to topic, pronounced the word "unique" as "unaque," boasted he had a "better body" than Joe Biden, and declared that "most people don't have any idea what the hell a phone app is."
Tennis star Andy Roddick quickly dialed back on X: "I feel like most people know what a phone app is."
Trump: Most people don't have any idea what the hell a phone app is pic.twitter.com/c7b4BugarX
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 28, 2024
I feel like most people know what a phone app is
— andyroddick (@andyroddick) September 28, 2024
He told supporters in Prairie du Chien, a town of 5,500 people, that his opponent Kamala Harris was "born" mentally impaired, and declared that Fox News "shouldn't be allowed" to air what she says.
Trump: Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country. pic.twitter.com/v6Yo6uINp5
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 28, 2024
Trump on Kamala Harris speech: I have to sit there and listen to her bullshit and who puts it on Fox News? And they shouldn't be allowed to put it on.
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 28, 2024
(Jesse Watters aired the speech last night) pic.twitter.com/p22V6pZwVE
Trump, 78, also found it very strange that "nobody has heard from" Harris's father, as if parents routinely play a big role in campaigns. Trump's father died 25 years ago, and suffered from dementia years before that.
"I'd love to speak to him," Trump said of Harris's dad. Perhaps he wants to ascertain that the academic from Jamaica is actually a Black person, since Trump has raised baseless questions about his opponent's Indian-Black heritage.
Trump: Where is Kamala Harris’ father? I’d love to speak to him. Nobody’s heard from him pic.twitter.com/z845qA0YIY
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 28, 2024
The big note of the night was "The Fly" at a his podium, which would not have existed two years ago, Trump insisted, apparently when everything was so much sunnier and there were fewer immigrants.
"See, two years ago I wouldn't have had a fly up here. But they're changing rapidly. We can't take it any longer," he said of the fly seconds after bashing immigrants.
Trump sees a fly and insinuates it’s because of immigrants.
— Christine (@guelphgirlchris) September 28, 2024
Donald Trump- “Oh, there’s a fly. Oh, I wonder where the fly came from? See, two years ago I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. But they’re changing rapidly. We can’t take it any longer.”
pic.twitter.com/nA8LIcpiUa
Trump's buzz on the fly followed a particularly brutal string of vicious attacks on immigrants in American, calling them "monsters," "stone-cold killers" and "vile animals."
He accused migrants of wanting to "rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill the people of the United States of America," noting at one point: "This is a dark speech."
Trump insisted that Harris's election would turn every place in American into a "third-world hell hole."
A Venezuelan in the U.S. illegally was detained in Prairie du Chien in September for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and attacking her daughter.
But calling out an apocalyptic vision of crime may not resonate in Wisconsin, which is one of the safest states in the union, with a violent crime rate 22% lower than the national average. In addition, the state's key dairy industry heavily relies on undocumented immigrants.
Trump initially planned an outdoor rally in the town, but the Secret Service raised concerns about its ability to secure the event due to staff shortages.
Trump's speech was moved to the Prairie du Chien Area Arts Center, which accommodates some 300 people. A few hundred more waiting to get inside could not be seated, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
The newspaper described Trump's speech as "characteristically rambling and sometimes disconnected."
