And so we got Trumpapalooza. “I’m asking you to pretend I’m on the ballot!” he told the crowd, between riffs mocking Democrats and referring to his second term as “the most successful two years, financially and every other way, in the history of the presidency.” Even calling this a convention is a bit of a misnomer. There is no platform being debated, or candidates being nominated. This was a tarted-up Trump rally.
The president was preceded by a series of conservative stars including Adam Carrola, the reactionary comedian, and Ken Paxton, the Republican fighting to keep the Senate seat in Texas red. The crowd, which didn’t quite fill the American Airlines Center—home of the Dallas Mavericks—gobbled up the familiar buzzwords. “Trump!” Loud cheers. “Trans!” Loud boos. James Talarico, Paxton’s challenger in Texas, was a recurring target, as was Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive physician running for a Senate seat in Michigan.
As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent delivered a somewhat dreary speech, a MAGA hat-clad woman sitting next to me started watching an animated video on her phone of bombs falling on a map of Iran. But it wasn’t until Trump took the stage as the last speaker of the night that I heard anyone mention his military excursion. Consider that: The defining policy of Trump’s second term, possibly his political career, an operation he has labeled a “total and complete victory,” was a non-event here. The fact that none in his party dared to mention this historic achievement—even in this room packed with MAGA faithful—is a good sign of just how toxic the war has become. These Republicans will show up to Trump’s big midterm rally. They’ll even speak at it, lavishing gooey praise on the soon-to-be lame duck with a 30% approval rating. But they draw the line at defending his war.
Trump himself has no such compunction. He mentioned Iran on several occasions, engaging in a call-and-response with the crowd. “Anyone here think that Iran should have a nuclear weapon?” Loud boos. Case closed. Trump spoke for more than an hour and a half, a marathon speech even for our loquacious president. He reveled in diverting from the written speech, riffing about Paxton’s looks (“bad,” he declared, before apologizing for having spoken a harsh truth). On multiple occasions, he reassured the crowd, and perhaps himself, that the arena was full and that no one was leaving, including as his speech crossed the hour mark. As he said it, multiple people could be seen walking out. He pivoted seamlessly from a monologue explaining that he calls Democrats “Dumocrats” now—and that there is a “b” in the word “dumb,” despite what some people believe—to a bit about transgender athletes. He mused about renaming the Strait of Hormuz “The Trump Strait,” and proposed rebranding both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans—though he allowed, in an uncharacteristic concession, that doing both might be excessive.
His most memorable riff centered on Talarico, whom he dubbed “Talafreako” to the delight of the crowd. “He was also somebody that hated eating meat,” Trump explained, “but he ran a campaign to beat meat. He called it ‘beat meat.’ I don’t know what the hell he meant by that. These people are gonna tell me, what the hell is he—he wants to beat meat? But it was bad for his image, so he started eating meat. And he recently—it’s getting worse; I’m getting myself in trouble. It’s getting worse. But he was recently seen having a barbecue and eating a lot of meat. But that’s what happened. He ate it, and then he was seen running backstage to a room and throwing up all over the place. He doesn’t like meat.” (For what it’s worth, Talarico insists he is not a vegan and comes from a long line of Lone Star carnivores.)
