Trump Insists He ‘Doesn’t Freeze,’ Brags About Not Falling
Trump is right that he didn’t “glitch” during a NRA speech. His claims about his superior “reflexes and strength” are dubious.
Joe Biden is an 81-year-old president who has been a self-described “gaffe machine” for many years. Donald Trump is a 78-year-old former president known for giving incoherent rants. Both men occasionally show their age in public, whether by tripping onstage, sleeping in public, mixing up names, or telling weird stories involving cannibals.
Neither Biden, nor Trump, nor the American people are happy about these facts. But rather than accepting them and moving on, every few weeks the two 2024 presidential candidates get into an argument about who’s more old and senile — though neither man ever comes out looking very good.
The tiff du jour centers on whether Trump “froze” Mitch McConnell style while speaking at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention on Saturday in Dallas. Here’s one of the tweets that went viral over the weekend:
BREAKING: Donald Trump just glitched out and froze at his rally tonight. He is clearly unfit for office. Retweet so every American knows Trump is senile. pic.twitter.com/QTa5qKNy8H
— Biden’s Wins (@BidensWins) May 19, 2024
Trump hit back on Sunday night, insisting on Truth Social that “Donald Trump doesn’t freeze!”
Trump made one very strong point in his defense: He did not freeze.
If you’re familiar with MAGA rally schtick, it’s clear this was just a (botched) dramatic pause. At this point in Trump’s stump speech, he often stops to shake his head in faux disbelief at how America has become “a nation in decline.” The moment looked odd in the Dallas speech because the pause was longer than usual and the video didn’t capture any reaction from the crowd. Here’s an example of what Trump was going for, from a November 2023 rally:
Trump did the creepy QAnon music bit at his rally last night in Hialeah pic.twitter.com/I2Ly5XV2Ut
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 9, 2023
The rest of Trump’s Truth Social statement is peppered with false and unproven assertions that undermine his point. Biden does not freeze “all the time.” It’s unclear what “dying Newspaper” he’s referring to. And there’s no evidence that the story was planted by Trump’s opponent. While various pro-Biden accounts reposted the video with captions accusing Trump of freezing, the Biden-Harris campaign’s X post focused on Trump playing the QAnon anthem at his rallies, which is true:
Trump starts playing QAnon music during his bizarre slur-filled NRA speech pic.twitter.com/tprP3rRxMR
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 18, 2024
Trump wasn’t finished with his poorly executed defense. In a second Truth Social post, he showed off his ability to not to fall down onstage:
This post makes no sense unless, like Trump, you spend all day staring at social media. It seems he was responding to this post from the Biden-Harris campaign:
A feeble Trump nearly falls down on stage after he leans on his podium too hard and then goes on an angry rant calling his event workers “crappy” pic.twitter.com/4fzPZfgpuZ
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 18, 2024
Does this clip actually show a “feeble” Trump nearly falling down? No, that’s an exaggeration. Is it an impressive display of Trump’s “good reflexes and strength”? Also no; he just salvaged a potentially embarrassing moment by remaining upright and making a decent quip about the podium “tilting further left.”
When the top-two presidential candidates are making dubious personal accusations and bragging about surviving a run-in with a wobbly podium, nobody wins.