Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump listens during a town hall at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center and Fairgrounds in Oaks, Pennsylvania, on October 14, 2024.
Jim Watson | Afp | Getty Images
Kamala Harris mocked Donald Trump‘s behavior at an unusual campaign event, where the GOP presidential nominee cut short a question-and-answer session to listen to music with the crowd for nearly 40 minutes.
“Hope he’s okay,” Harris, the Democratic nominee, wrote on X early Tuesday morning.
The vice president’s tweet was replying to her campaign X account’s post saying, “Trump appears lost, confused, and frozen on stage as multiple songs play for 30+ minutes and the crowd pours out of the venue early.”
It was one of many posts by social media users that raised eyebrows over video from Monday night showing Trump swaying to music at his event outside Philadelphia.
Trump, 78, in turn, on Tuesday suggested that Harris was unqualified to be president because of her minor allergies and hives, which were disclosed in health records she released this weekend.
But Trump also doubled down on his refusal to release his own health records — which Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have cited as they question his fitness for office.
Trump’s campaign event Monday night was billed as a town hall where Trump would take questions from South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
But the Q&A portion was disrupted twice by medical emergencies in the crowd.
At one point, the song “Ave Maria” played on the speakers as Trump and Noem waited for medical workers to attend to a person.
After the second interruption, Trump stopped taking questions.
“Let’s not do any more questions,” Trump announced. “Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?”
Republican presidential nominee former U.S. President Donald Trump and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem react during a town hall campaign event in Oaks, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 14, 2024.
David Muse | Reuters
He then stood onstage facing the crowd, largely without speaking as a series of songs played through the venue’s speakers.
The music-listening portion of the evening went on for nearly 40 minutes.
The songs included, “Time to Say Goodbye,” by Andrea Bocelli, Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” and Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain.”
Trump left the stage to the sounds of “Memory” from the musical “Cats.”
Trump in a subsequent Truth Social post called the town hall “amazing!”
“The Q and A was almost finished when people began fainting from the excitement and heat. We started playing music while we waited, and just kept it going,” he said.
“So different, but it ended up being a GREAT EVENING!”
In other Truth Social posts early Tuesday, Trump claimed he was “far too busy campaigning to take time” to devote to medical exams.
But he also asserted that he has “already provided them, many times, including quite recently, and they were flawless.”
And in another post later Tuesday, he declared, “MY REPORT IS PERFECT – NO PROBLEMS!!!”
He told CBS News in August that he would “very gladly” release his medical records, but his campaign has yet to do so.
When CNBC asked the Trump campaign for the records that Trump claims he has already provided, spokesman Steven Cheung referred to his statement from Saturday that said Trump has “voluntarily released updates” from multiple sources.
He pointed to a note last November from Trump’s personal physician, Bruce Aronwald, and two memos written in late July by former White House physician Ronny Jackson after Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
“All have concluded he is in perfect and excellent health to be Commander in Chief,” Cheung wrote.
Aronwald’s 11-month-old, glowing letter concluded that Trump is “in excellent health” and likely to “enjoy a health active lifestyle for years to come.”
But it offered few details about Trump’s medical history.
The memos by Jackson focused on the injury Trump sustained when a bullet grazed his ear at the July 13 rally. Jackson, now a Republican congressman who represents a Texas district, is one of Trump’s most loyal supporters.
Harris on Saturday released a letter from her White House doctor describing the 59-year-old vice president as being in “excellent health” and capable of carrying out the duties of the presidency.
Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she arrives at Erie International Airport ahead of a campaign rally, in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 14, 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Harris’ medical history includes seasonal allergies and hives, but she has never experienced severe symptoms, Dr. Joshua Simmons wrote in the two-page letter.
After taking an antihistamine and an allergy medication, both issues have “improved dramatically” to the point that Harris has not needed any medication to manage her symptoms apart from an occasional nasal spray, Simmons wrote.
A day after releasing her records, Harris blasted Trump at a campaign rally in North Carolina.
“He refuses to release his medical records,” Harris said at the rally on Sunday.
She also mocked Trump for recently ducking an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” and for declining to debate her a second time.
“Why does his staff want him to hide away?” she asked. “Are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America?”
Trump tried to flip that script on Harris on Tuesday.
He claimed — despite the glowing evaluation of Harris’ health by her doctor — that her medical report is “not good.”
He falsely claimed in a Truth Social post that her allergies were “a very messy and dangerous situation,” and said that she “suffers” from hives, while referring to them by their medical name, urticaria.
“These are deeply serious conditions that clearly impact her functioning,” Trump wrote.
“Maybe that is why she can’t answer even the simplest of questions asked by 60 Minutes, and others,” he wrote.
He was referencing his frequent complaints about how CBS’ news show edited its recent interview with Harris.
Trump backed out of an interview with “60 Minutes” before Harris’ interview aired.
“What is this all about? I don’t have these problems,” Trump wrote. He claimed that he had “aced” two cognitive exams and that he was “far healthier” than the four other most recent presidents, “but especially, Kamala.”
“Also, I am far too busy campaigning to take time, from the 22 days left, as I am using every hour, of every day, campaigning, because we have to take back our Country from the Radical Left people that are destroying it,” Trump wrote.
He went on to claim, “With all of the problems that she has, there is a real question as to whether or not she should be running for President! MY REPORT IS PERFECT – NO PROBLEMS!!!”
Correction: Bruce Aronwald is Trump’s personal physician. An earlier version misspelled his name.
