2024-10-16 08:20:02
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, holds a town hall at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pa., on Oct. 14.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A Trump town hall in Oaks, Pa., Monday night went from a Q&A session to a bizarre musical event in which Trump stood in front of his audience for an extended period while songs played on the sound system.
The town hall portion of the event lasted nearly an hour and was moderated by Kristi Noem, South Dakota’s Republican governor, who is a Trump ally.
The questioners were all friendly to Trump, with questions about how he would bring down inflation, as well as boost small businesses.
The town hall was paused twice for incidents in which the crowd called for a medic. Audience members shouted that the room was too hot.
As medics attended to people affected by the heat, Trump and Noem waited onstage. During the first pause, the crowd sang “God Bless America” together, after which Trump asked for someone to put the song “Ave Maria” on the sound system. An instrumental version soon began playing.
Shortly after the town hall resumed, there was another call for a medic.
“It’s steaming in here!” one man yelled as they waited for assistance, and the instrumental Ave Maria played once again, until the woman affected received help.
Trump joked about the heat in the room: “Personally, I enjoy this. We lose weight. We could do this, lose 4, 5 pounds.”
Trump then called for his “favorite chart” to be put up on screens — the chart of border crossings that had been displayed in Butler, Pa., on July 13 when a would-be assassin shot at Trump, hitting his ear. In addition, he asked that someone play a version of “Ave Maria” sung by Luciano Pavarotti.
“We’ll do a little music. Let’s make this a musical-fest,” he said.
Trump stood onstage until the song was over, at which point he stopped the question-and-answer portion of the evening.
“Let’s not do anymore questions. Let’s just listen to music,” he said.
Later, Trump asked the audience to stick around.
“By the way, when we leave, you don’t have to go so fast. You can sit and listen. We’ll play a couple of songs. Some of you will be a little warm, but that’s OK. It’s not a bad thing. And if you want, we’re gonna do that, but I think it would be beautiful. Don’t you think? A little different.”
“I think it’d be amazing, sir,” Noem said.
“Nice to have imagin — isn’t it a nice thing to have imagination?”
Trump remained onstage for more than half an hour while an array of songs played, including “Hallelujah” as performed by Rufus Wainwright, as well as “November Rain” by Guns N’ Roses.
On Tuesday, Trump, posting on his Truth Social account, called the evening “amazing.”
“The Q and A was almost finished when people began fainting from the excitement and heat,” he said. “We started playing music while we waited, and just kept it going. So different, but it ended up being a GREAT EVENING!”
The town hall came as three weeks remain in the voting season and Trump and Vice President Harris remain statistically tied, according to most polls. Both candidates are delivering their closing messages and drawing a contrast from their rival as they crisscross the United States. Trump will deliver remarks on the economy in Chicago on Tuesday and will pretape a town hall with women voters on Fox News that will air Wednesday. Harris is doing a town hall with the popular radio host Charlamagne tha God in her attempt to reach Black male voters.
