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“Tradition holds that I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening,” said Donald Trump in his speech at the Al Smith Dinner in New York earlier this month. “So here it goes.” He paused. “Nope. I’ve got nothing… There’s nothing to say. I guess I just don’t see the point at taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me.” The crowd roared.
Many of the jokes were close to the bone: “We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child. It’s a person that has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris.”
We can’t know whether Harris herself would have laughed. She was the first presidential candidate in forty years to miss the dinner, which has become famous for its speeches in which the two opponents make jibes at each other’s expense. Instead, she appeared only in a prerecorded video. Some Democratic operatives feared that her absence might upset the Catholic vote: this is a charity fundraiser organized by the Arch-diocese of New York. What would voters make of the ice president’s priorities, especially in the swing state of Pennsylvania where a quarter of voters are Catholic?
What followed was a hybrid between a MAGA-fest and a comedy show
In the end, however, her team needn’t have worried about a perceived snub. They should have worried that, unopposed and in the spotlight, Trump confirmed Democrats’ fears: he is still funny.
When Trump is down on his luck, his angry, vengeful reflexes kick in — and the former president has been in a slump for years. He lost the 2020 election. He failed to produce a “red wave” in the 2022 midterms. He faces multiple indictments which have so far resulted in one conviction. Whether he’s fighting legitimate battles for the presidency or illegitimate battles to overturn election results, he becomes frustrated and bitter when things aren’t going his way.
But when he is on the up, his humor returns. During the Republican primaries, Democrats were rooting for Trump to win the nomination, expecting they would be running against an angry, revenge-obsessed candidate. For months, that’s who they got. But in the past few weeks, something has restored Trump’s humor. Perhaps it’s positive internal polls, or Harris’s recent word salads. Regardless, in his speeches, rallies and other events, he’s going back to the style of performance that helped him clinch the presidency in 2016. Can he keep people laughing until polling day?
I witnessed firsthand the return of Trump the stand-up comic at a town hall event at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Sunday night. The show began long before attendees arrived. Once I registered for a ticket, my inbox was bombarded. “From Trump: I’LL NEVER STOP LOVING YOU.” followed by a fundraising plea. “From Trump: I JUST LEFT MCDONALD’S,” reads another message. “That was fun!” Trump’s shift at McDonald’s was part of his weekend tour of Pennsylvania. Another message: “I have a McGift for you. It’s President Trump!”
The convention center in Lancaster holds roughly 6,000 people, but many more turned up for the event, driving for hours, even across state lines. Not everyone got in, but everyone in the queue still got to witness the fun. Trump impersonators walked up and down the block imitating his speeches. A group of first-generation immigrants held up a flag depicting Trump as a samurai, dancing to rap music and the national anthem. For many attendees it was a family day out. “It’s like standing in line for a Disney ride,” remarked one dad, “but even more surreal.”
Most attendees wore their MAGA finest. The most popular T-shirt was one emblazoned with the photo taken of Trump in the seconds after the first assassination attempt: bleeding, fist-pumping, and shouting “Fight.” Every few paces was a vendor with a cart of gear, including hats that read “I’m voting for the convicted felon” and politically incorrect placards of the vice president, the “border czar,” in a sombrero and with a moustache. “I know Biden screwed up the economy, but you can still buy a hat,” shouted one seller. “Put it on your credit card and pay it off when Trump is president!”
In 2020 Lancaster county voted for Trump by a sixteen-point margin, but among the red-brick homes decorated with pumpkins and fallen leaves, there were plenty of Harris-Walz signs. Despite all the Trump supporters walking by them, none appeared to be defiled. “If the situation were reversed, Trump signs would be kicked in,” asserted one young woman. I asked her which way she thinks the state will vote. “It’s really 50/50. If the media stopped taking his jokes out of context, his polling would be better.”
Pennsylvania’s nineteen electoral college votes are expected to determine the outcome of the election, which is why Trump and his vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance have been ramping up their appearances in the state this month. This makes Trump an expert on the place: “I know this area very well, maybe better, some of the greatest people,” he told the crowd after he took the stage to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”
What followed for over an hour was a hybrid between a MAGA-fest and stand-up comedy. Trump answered the audience’s questions, moderated by Sage Steele, a former ESPN commentator who has rebranded herself as a critic of the mainstream media. Most of the time was spent on illegal immigration and fracking, with occasional nods to the economy. (Trump said “tariffs” was his “favorite word in the dictionary, outside of “love” and “religion.” Whatever the topic, he made them laugh.
He pulled up his “favorite” immigration chart, which he says saved his life in the first assassination attempt, as turning towards the graph caused the bullet to clip his ear, not his skull. “I wouldn’t be here without that chart. I sleep with it, I kiss it when I go to bed.”
He repeatedly talked about migrants “taking over” America and rolled it into an insinuation about crime: “They’re in the real estate business all of a sudden.” The reference was to dubious reports that Venezuelan gangs have taken over vacant apartment buildings in Colorado. The audience was laughing. Facts matter less in comedy routines.
It’s sometimes unclear whether a comment is meant to be funny, and then Trump has to clarify. “I can’t use the word ‘Harris,’” he said with disgust, before flipping immediately. “And by the way it’s her sixtieth birthday, so I want to wish her a happy sixtieth birthday. And many more.” The audience burst into mock boos and laughter. “And I mean it. You know, I do mean it, actually,” he insisted.
Trump’s most loyal supporters gave as much as they got. One woman was noticed by Trump and Sage Steele at the start of the rally, crying what were dubbed “happy tears.” “Oh no she’s crying again,” Trump said halfway through the town hall. “Stand up, show everybody.” The camera panned to her sobbing face. “Thank you, darling,” Trump said after her devotion had been witnessed by the crowd. “Appreciate it.” Another woman, selected to ask a question, reminded Trump that they had met before. “Uh oh,” he replied, before recalling her description of his face tattooed on her leg.
Among the jokes and chants and meeting the faithful, he made time for fear-mongering. “If they get chosen, our country is finished,” he reminded the audience towards the end. Still, the audience walked out elated. “That was better than Netflix,”!one man said to his family. They nodded.
On the highway home, I was confronted with billboard after billboard of election ads for both Trump and Harris. Littered between them were ads for cannabis shops in neighboring states and local strip clubs. That’s America: sex and drugs and Trump on a roll.
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.
