Trump Mocked a Heckler’s Weight — and His Own — at Manchester Rally

A Trump supporter, right, tries to grab a protesters' sign as President Donald Trump
Patrick Semansky / Associated Press

The media’s latest outrage over President Donald Trump is that he made fun of an overweight protester at his rally Thursday evening at the SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire. But Trump also mocked his own weight — a fact that many have simply overlooked, even though he did it in the same breath.

After a disturbance began in the upper deck behind the stage, Trump briefly interrupted his remarks and looked behind him. As police escorted the protester out, Trump turned back to the podium and said: “That guy’s got a serious weight problem. Go home, start exercising.” He then added: “He’s got a bigger problem than I do,” referring to his own weight.

Though the president is in good health, his doctor warned earlier this year that he had gained weight in the White House.

Trump added, referring to the protester: “Now he goes home and his mom says, ‘What the hell have you just done?'”

There was one additional interruption from the same section of the stadium later in the speech, and police officers escorted two hecklers away.

Outside the rally, left-wing protesters formed a gauntlet that forced Trump supporters to walk between people shouting “Shame!” and other taunts, but there was no violence.

The rally — with roughly 12,000 inside the building, and thousands more outside — broke the attendance record for the arena, previously set by Elton John, according to the president.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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