President Donald Trump on Saturday praised fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter as a “great man” before continuing to make disparaging comments about people who immigrated to the United States without permission.
The former president’s remarks to attendees at a political rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, contesting Joe Biden’s re-election in November served as a not-so-subtle rhetorical bridge to praise director Anthony Hopkins’ cannibalistic Lecter . silence of the lambs as “slow” [and] “It’s wonderful,” but at the same time criticizes “the people who are being released into our country that we don’t want.”
President Trump spoke to an estimated 80,000 supporters under the shadow of the Great White roller coaster at a kitschy 1950s seaside resort 90 miles (144.8 kilometers) south of Philadelphia. .
It was an opportunity for President Trump to reiterate his admiration for Lecter after actor Mads Micklesson previously played him on the TV series. explained Trump is “a breath of fresh air for some people,” he said.
Among other comments, President Trump on Sunday repeated the lie that he was “indicted more than the great Alphonse Capone,” the violent Prohibition-era Chicago mob boss.
Since the spring of 2023, Trump has faced more than 80 criminal charges, including for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election that he lost to Biden, for keeping classified materials after he took office, and for paying hush money to adult film actors. He is working on four charges that will lead to charges. Prosecutors allege it was illegally covered up.
The trial over hush money is scheduled to begin its fourth week starting Monday.
However, Capone was indicted at least six times before his famous tax evasion conviction in 1931.
Nevertheless, Trump used the opportunity to call the accusations against him “bullshit,” and the audience chanted the word at him.
As the Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out: Supporters of the former president flocked to Wildwood from up and down the East Coast in “pickup trucks emblazoned with Trump flags.”
The newspaper said hundreds of people camped overnight on the boardwalk to take part in the event.
“This country is heading in the wrong direction,” Kelly Carter Currier, 62, a retired teacher from New Hampshire, told the Inquirer. “So, hopefully people will come together and vote for the right person. And if they don’t, I don’t know. World War III?”
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Meanwhile, the New Jersey Democratic Party denied the significance of the event.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill said many of the Trump supporters are expected to come from out of state. “Jersey is not going to be a welcoming place for President Trump,” Sherrill said.
Rep. Andy Kim, a fellow New Jersey Democrat who is running for the U.S. Senate, said a general apathy toward government led to his support for Trump.
“I hope people realize that he is not a person whose policies will bring about better politics,” Kim said.
