This year’s presidential campaign has had an ongoing storyline: Donald Trump’s rallies aren’t quite what they used to be.
Trump had raucous rallies throughout the 2016 cycle. Once elected, he never really stopped having them, even when the pandemic knocked out just about all other in-person campaign activity. Trump continued holding rallies as president long before election time and kept having them after leaving office.
But in the current cycle, it’s often been remarked that Trump’s rallies don’t have the same energy that they used to and that Trump rambles even more than he once did. There have even been reports — pointed out in the presidential debate by Kamala Harris — of Trump supporters walking out of the rallies while Trump is still speaking.
Trump admits people were ‘falling asleep’ at one of his rallies https://t.co/qykRJvs0Jo
— Lee Newman (@Lnewman16Lee) September 30, 2024
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Now, Trump has seemingly acknowledged a lack of excitement at his events.
Per Raw Story, speaking at one such rally in Erie, Pa., Trump acknowledged that people had been sleeping at his rallies- and that he had been cursing at them to discourage that.
Trump said both his wife, Melania, and Franklin Graham had commented to him about using dirty words at rallies.
“And then I said, okay, I won’t use certain words,” Trump explained. “But you know, when you don’t use those certain little keywords like bulls—, there’s, there’s no other word.”
“No, I’m trying to find, it’s just, there’s no other word,” Trump added. “I mean, I don’t use really bad words, but like, you know, for emphasis.”
“And so I tried it one time, and it wasn’t pretty,” Trump added. “Instead of that word I said, and it’s not true.”
“And people are looking like, you know, falling asleep.”
On CNN’s King Charles show back in April, the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman noted that Trump had been cursing more at rallies, even with kids in attendance:
Oh no Trump is cursing more at rallies and people are applauding 😂 pic.twitter.com/UU2CGIOYTs
— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) April 4, 2024
As for Trump, he’s been known to fall asleep in public, including multiple times in court during his criminal trial in New York earlier this year. Some media outlets reported that Trump had fallen asleep while attending the Republican National Convention, but in fact he had his eyes closed in prayer at the time.
Photo courtesy of Political Tribune photo library.