“Hello,” said Donald Trump to the packed house that gathered to hear him speak.
The eulogy came after a 17-minute blackout that left the former president unable to communicate with an audience gathered to hear him speak at a rally in Detroit, one of the nation’s biggest swing states, on Friday night.
this for the second time last week When the Trump rally derailed — the setbacks are notable because they come in the final weeks of a campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, who according to most public polls has a racial lead neck and neck.
When the sound ended, Trump walked around the stage, occasionally chatting with technical staff and nearby rally attendees. But he did not leave the stage and go into the crowd.
“I’m not going to pay this stupid company,” Trump said, referring to the unnamed audio company he blamed for the snafu when the audio started working again. “If it goes out again, I’m going to sue that company.”
The rally went on for another hour, but Trump struggled to overcome the occasional early vote setback; 20 minutes into the event, he was complaining that he had to “scream” to get his message across, even though the sound system was fully restored.
Trump then went on to joke that he wanted Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers of Michigan to join him on stage, but didn’t want him speaking from a “bad” microphone. Rogers never joined Trump on stage.
Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania turned into a rally on Tuesday music listening session after two attendees had medical problems, it prompted Trump to direct staff to play about 30 minutes of songs from a personally curated Spotify playlist.
The rally-turned-concert forced Trump to wobble on stage for a long time with few words, creating an awkward image that fueled criticism from Democrats that the 78-year-old is unfit to serve as president again.
“Voters are just starting to tune in, and objectively they see a diminished Trump who rambles on for hours, makes no sense, freezes for 30 minutes and forces people to listen to his Spotify playlist. It’s weird and it’s getting voters more and more worried,” a Harris campaign adviser said after the Pennsylvania rally.
After a poor turnout Friday night, Trump’s Detroit rally quickly became a standard event for the former president.
Much of the event focused on illegal immigration, a typical focus of Trump’s campaign, and highlighted Detroit luminaries such as boxer Tommy “The Hitman” Hearns and rapper Trick Trick.
“After talking to The Hitman and Trick Trick, it seems boring to go back to Kamala,” Trump said after acknowledging both on stage.
From there, he continued his general bag of questioning and attacks on Harris, who narrowly trailed Trump in the majority public poll margin of error.
If Trump returns to the White House, he has said he would end the “transgender frenzy,” end the war in Ukraine — a promise he’s long made without specifying how — while cracking down on illegal immigration, which remains a major cog. In Trump’s economic message.
“Kamala destroyed our border,” he said. “He destroyed our economy.”
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign took to social media Friday evening to hit out at Trump for falling asleep during a campaign stop earlier that day, posting a video of him appearing to close his eyes.
NBC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Jillian Frankel, Jake Traylor, Garrett Haake, Olympia Sonnier and Megan Lebowitz contributed.