After two medical emergencies occurred during a Trump town hall on Monday night, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign focused on his response as an indication of mental decline. However, ABC News quickly debunked that narrative, reporting that the atmosphere was more lively than ever and that nothing about former President Donald Trump’s quick-witted reaction was unusual.
About 30 minutes into a town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, a heated atmosphere at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center and Fairgrounds led to two individuals fainting within minutes. As first responders attended to them, the sizable crowd spontaneously began singing “God Bless America,” according to ABC News. Trump then asked technicians to play “Ave Maria” over the speaker system. In a statement, campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt defended the Republican’s reaction. “The safety and well-being of President Trump’s supporters is always his top priority,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign press secretary, said in a statement to ABC News after the event. “The two individuals who fainted were immediately given medical attention. As President Trump said tonight, they are great patriots,” Leavitt said.
Trump also asked for the facility doors to be opened to let in the October breeze, but security said it wasn’t possible due to the risk of unauthorized entries. “Open the doors. I wish we could open those doors to outside,” Trump said at the time. “For security reasons, they can’t. But you know what I suggest? Open them. Because anybody comes through those doors, you know what’s going to happen to them.”
After the emergencies, Trump stood on stage for about 45 minutes, not taking questions. He stood while songs by some of his favorite artists, including James Brown and opera singer Pavarotti, played overhead. “Many stayed for what became an impromptu indoor concert,” an ABC reporter said of the event. Also, the network’s senior national correspondent Terry Moran said Trump, after promising to secure the border, end the war in Ukraine, lower grocery prices, and bring inflation down to 2%, “kept DJing, and most of his supporters stayed for another 30 minutes.”
And while “certain corners” of social media described the incident as strange, “inside that hall, people were having a good time. What can I tell you?” Moran added. “It did not seem out of the ordinary. It seemed almost intimate. And at the time Trump did something he rarely does. He came down off the stage and mingled with his supporters. He was signing autographs and shaking hands.”
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