Trump made an ugly comparison during a recent campaign rally

Donald Trump has become well-known for the ridiculous gaffes and off-the-cuff remarks he spouts at his campaign rallies but the former president’s most recent comments may have gone a little too far. 

Trump’s impromptu deviations may have gotten him in hot water with some voters after a series of weird gaffes and remarks during a long and meandering campaign speech in Wildwood, New Jersey om May 11th. 

One of the weirdest moments of the former president’s speech saw him talk about how much he liked the fictional serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter, whom he called “a wonderful man” according to reports. 

Trump’s moment of praise for the imagined serial killer created by the author Thomas Harris and later adapted to the silver screen was used by the former president to repeat his claims of a crisis at the southern border.  

“Has anyone ever seen ‘The Silence of the Lambs’?” Trump asked the crowd before he drove into his tirade about the fictional character according to a transcript of his bizarre comments quoted by The Hill. 

“The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’s a wonderful man. He often would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? ‘Excuse me, I’m about to have a friend for dinner,’ as this poor doctor walked by,” Trump explained. 

"‘I’m about to have a friend for dinner.’ But Hannibal Lecter. Congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter,” Trump said. If the former president’s comments don’t make any sense to you, that’s okay. He eventually got to his point. 

Trump brought up Hannibal Lecter to the crowd at his Wildwood campaign rally because he wanted to draw a comparison between the fictional character and the migrants that he not so subtly said were being let into the United States. 

“We have people that have been released into our country that we don’t want in our country, and they’re coming in totally unchecked, totally unvetted. And we can’t let this happen,” the former president explained. 

“They’re destroying our country, and we’re sitting back,” Trump added. “And we better d**n well win this election, because if we don’t, our country is going to be doomed. It’s going to be doomed,” the former president went on to say. 

This wasn’t the first time that Trump has compared migrants to Hannibal Lecter. The Hill reported that the former president has made the comparison several times throughout his campaign to win back the White House in 2024. 

Newsweek reported that Trump’s Hannibal Lecter gaffe wasn’t the only worrying remark that the former president made during his speech in New Jersey, he also talked about a conversation he had had with Frank Sinatra and Luciano Pavarotti about food. 

"Frank Sinatra told me a long time ago, 'never eat before you perform.' I said, 'I'm not performing, I'm a politician if you can believe it, I hate to be called a politician,'" Trump told his supporters about the conversation. 

After going off on a short rant about the election, Trump returned to the topic of his talk with Sinatra and Pavoratti saying: "But I just had the best hot dog, so I said, Frank 'I'm sorry'. Now, Pavoratti was a good friend, he didn't have the same, he ate all the time, he didn't care."

Newsweek pointed out that Frank Sinatra died in 1998, long before the former president entered politics. However, this wasn’t the only issue that Trump seemed confused about during his speech in New Jersey. 

The former president also appeared to mix up the island of Taiwan with China when he said: "If you take a look at President Xi of China, talking about Beijing—now they've got ships circling, they have planes—they're never doing anything."

Trump also called former president Jimmy Carter “Jimmy Connors.” All in all, the former president’s entire speech was filled with enough gaffes and errors to reignite worry that he was suffering from some type of mental decline. 

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