Former President Donald Trump hasn’t changed his stump speech style despite reports in conservative-friendly media outlets that he is having a difficult time with the strain of multiple criminal charges — and has been leaning heavily on former First Lady Melania Trump to help him through it.
Rupert Murdoch‘s New York Post recently revealed in its Page Six coverage that “Friends [of Trump] whisper these last few weeks have been hard on Trump, and although he always presents a tough front, these constant legal assaults are affecting his day-to-day life.”
But if Trump is feeling stressed, it comes across more in his increasingly vitriolic social media posts (Nancy Pelosi is a “sick & demented psycho who will someday live in HELL!” etc.) than it does in his seemingly relaxed, insult-filled public appearances. Below is a clip of Trump weighing in on his competition for the GOP presidential nomination.
Notably, he compliments mini-Trump and pseudo rival Vivek Ramaswamy (“he’s good”) before setting up his top foil, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Not bothering to assess Christie’s chances, Trump dismisses his corpulent antagonist by saying “he’s eating right now.” (Christie has long struggled, as he says himself, with his weight.)
Holy sh*t Trump just bodied Chris Christie
— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) August 8, 2023
“No Christie’s eating right now”
“Sir please don’t call him a Fat Pig — that’s very disrespectful” pic.twitter.com/5voRsgDc4N
Then after setting Christie up with this “eating” jab, Trump — as he likes to do — lets someone in the crowd take the next step. Invited by Trump to consider Christie chowing down, a MAGA man evidently calls Christie a “fat pig” — only to be met by a seemingly insincere chastisement from Trump, who says “Sir please do not call him a fat pig — that’s very disrespectful. See I’m trying to be nice,” Trump says. “Don’t call him a fat pig, you can’t do it.”
Many fans in the comments see this Trump moment as marking a return to his 2016 style, and they celebrate that Trump “is back.”
[NOTE: Another fan, meaning it as a compliment, says of Trump: “This is his best stuff.”]
Using the crowd to say what’s unsayable is a tried-and-true Trump technique — and those who see the 2016 Trump here may be remembering a vivid example from the campaign trail at that time. Here is Trump calling Ted Cruz a name a woman in the crowd allegedly called him, when he was cautious about advocating torture.
