Trump’s town hall turns bland after two crowd members fall ill in hot venue: Live

The most valuable asset any candidate for office has is time. And how they spend it shows what their priorities are.

The live stream has unceremoniously cut out, which presumably means Donald Trump’s town hall event in Oaks, Pennsylvania has ended – not with a bang but with the heartbreaking strains of ‘Memory’ from Cats.

Thanks for sticking with us through this rollercoaster, and best wishes to the two people who took ill.

One running theme of this town hall, at least before the medical incidents, was Trump refusing to believe official statistics.

On crime, inflation, and deaths in the Ukraine war, he repeatedly claimed that he didn’t accept the currently public numbers and that the true numbers were far worse – without going into detail or offering evidence.

Meanwhile, according to my colleague Alex Lang, the town hall has now been in this interrupted limbo state for twice as long as it was actually running.

Trump continues to sway his body mildly to the music.

The town hall event is ending – or is it? Things are a little confusing at present.

After playing Luciano Pavarotti’s ‘Ave Maria’, Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli’s ‘Time To Say Goodbye’, and James Brown’s ‘It’s A Man’s World’ (again featuring Pavarotti) – with a little bit of stiff dancing from the former president – Trump again addresses the crowd.

“How about this? We’ll play YMCA, and we’ll go home. But listen, whatever you can do, get out there. We have to win. This is the most important election in the history of our country…

“Those two people who went down are ptriots, and we love them. And because of them, we ended up with some good music, right?”

Then it’s on to Jeff Buckley’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’. More exciting news as soon as we get it.

Rather, the 49-year-old dual US-Canadian citizen, who was arrested Saturday with a loaded handgun, shotgun, and a high-capacity magazine in the parking area of a Trump rally in Coachella, California, is “but an artist,” he told The Independent.

Miller, a onetime journalist who has worked as a music video director and now runs a website called the America Happens Network — which features conspiracy-minded videos about 9/11 being “an inside job” and the “so-called” Covid-19 pandemic — said he “was certainly not there to cause any harm to anybody.”

At a news conference on Sunday, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco called Miller a “lunatic” with “fringe” views, and claimed his arrest may have headed off a third assassination attempt. But Trump was never in any danger at Saturday’s rally, the Secret Service, FBI, and US Attorney’s Office said in a joint statement.

An extended musical break and some patter from Trump as the medics handle the situation.

”Sir, she’s on her feet and walking out,” Kristi Noem tells the former president, referring to the second person who fainted. “Let’s encourage her,” Trump tells the crowd. “Let her know well be praying for her.”

He says both people are in “good shape”, before joking: “Would anyone else like to faint? Please raise your hand.”

Then he asks the town hall staff to put on Pavarotti’s version of Ave Maria, lamenting that the previous version played had no vocals.

At one point, a bar chart showing border crossings at the US-Mexico frontier appears on the projector. It’s a familiar prop: Trump has claimed that turning his head to look at the chart during the assassination attempt back in July “probably saved my life”, and that he loves it “more than I even love the police”.

“There it is! That’s my favourite piece of paper anywhere in the world. I sleep with it every night. I kiss it, I kiss it.”

As the crowd watches the medics work, someone puts Ave Maria on the venue stereo, giving the proceedings an eerie and reverent air.

“Eyyy! Eyyyyy! Great! We love that man. We love that man,” says Trump as the music plays, apparently responding to some sign of recovery from off-camera. “It’s so beautiful though, right? Listen to that [music]. It’s nice. He’s going to be okay. Right?”

Then the town hall resumes. But within a minute or two, people start pointing over to the other side of the venue, shouting “Medic! Medic!” Looks like someone else needs help. Ave Maria begins again.

The town hall pauses for a while so that someone in the crowd can receive medical attention.

“Take your time, doctor. Take your time. Thank you very much,” Trump says. “We always have great doctors in the audience.”

After a long pause while he and Kristi Noem look offstage at what’s happening, Trump : “Look at the quality of care we have. It’s incredible, when you think. First responders – our first responders are amazing, in the way they can do things so beautifully and quickly.” People in the audience wave their hats in saute.

A while later, Trump admits: “That looks a little bad… don’t worry, we’ll extend for a little time. WE just want to make sure they’re fine. This is a little bit of a tough one, I think.”

Then the crowd breaks into a spontaneous song – sounds like a hymn (maybe Abide With Me?). Hopefully the person is okay.

Second question is from Angelina, a Black woman in a blended family, who says she was raised among Philadelphia Democrats but is now being hurt by inflation.

“We’re going to do a lot of things,” says Trump, then pivots to talking about immigration.

During his answer, Trump wrongly claimed that we have recently seen the worst period of inflation in US history – although he qualified that this was just, like, his opinion, man.

“Such damage has been done – In my opinion, the biggest inflation in the history of our country,” he said. “They didn’t include a lot of the bad numbers.”

In fact that title goes to March and April of 1980, according to CNN, when the rate of inflation hit 14.6 per cent.