After a bizarre moment involving a microphone stand, some social media users have suggested Donald Trump mimed performing a sexual act onstage during a rally this past Friday.
The incident occurred as the former president and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, made a final push for votes in Wisconsin in what is expected to be a closely contested election decided by small margins in battleground states.
Trump had complained about technical difficulties with his microphone at the rally in Milwaukee. He asked the crowd if it wanted to see him “knock the hell out of people backstage,” moments after ripping the microphone off its stand after the crowd chanted that they could not hear him.
“The only thing I asked for is a mic…. I don’t even need a stage. I don’t give a damn. Give me a good mic,” he said while holding the microphone in his hand. “And I went through two of these today, and it knocks the hell out of your throat.”
Moments later, he began telling his supporters about his struggle with a microphone that had been placed too low in a stand, forcing him to bend over to speak into it.
“I came in today, I said, and, you know, this is after four of these things I’ve been in all fairness,” he said. “I mean, I’m a human being, right? I come in, and here’s the problem.”
He then gestured to the microphone stand and said it was “too low.” He then moved his hand up and down the stand, before bobbing his head up and down toward to it, prompting laughter from the crowd.
The Trump campaign has been contacted via email for comment.
Clips of the moment quickly circulated on social media, with critics likening the gestures to a sexual act.
“Ask yourself: what would happen if Kamala Harris did this?” Ana Navarro, a co-host on The View, wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“Yes. You saw right,” she continued. “This is Trump on stage at a rally, pretending to perform a sex-act on a microphone. This is not normal. Trump is disgusting, unhinged and unfit to represent the United States. Vote him out.”
Seth Abramson, a journalist and lawyer, tweeted: “How is the big news in America right now *not* that Trump simulated *multiple* sex acts with a microphone at a rally 96 hours before Election Day? What other news do voters need to be hearing about now?”
Harris’ campaign shared a six-second clip of the moment on X, captioning it: “?”
However, one Trump supporter said there was nothing sexual about the gesture.
“I was there. Nothing about this was sexual. Hell, it is weird they are even making this sexual,” a Trump-supporting X user with the handle @wiz_political wrote. “For full context, the microphone was crap and Trump had a bit of a comedic moment ripping it off the holder.”
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