Donald Trump's wildest onstage moments: From praising cannibals to outrageous lies

Donald Trump makes headlines. He might be the best in the world at doing it and not often for the right reasons, either.

His speeches over recent years, too, are full of increasingly strange moments which are picked up all over the world and seen by millions.

As cognitive concerns about Donald Trump continue to be raised, him mixing up words like ‘Hamas’ with ‘hummus’ continues to happen on a pretty regular basis.

But he’s always been a more than eccentric communicator, and he’s given us some truly bizarre scenes while giving speeches and public appearances over the years.

These are Trump’s wildest onstage moments.

Having a bug crawling around his hair

The strangest moments aren't always his fault, of course. Trump delivered a speech in Virginia with a bug crawling through his hair back in 2019.

The critter explored the US president’s hair during the speech and completely stole the limelight from him.

Unhinged' comment about planning to violate NATO treaty if reelected

Trump spoke at a rally in South Carolina earlier this year, and appeared to indicate that he was willing to violate Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty (overseen by Nato) by letting Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to a member country if they “don’t pay” their bills.

Referring to a conversation he claimed he had with “one of the presidents of a big country”, Trump said: “They asked me that question … ‘if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’

“I said, ‘you didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’

“He said, ‘yes, let’s say that happened’.

“No, I would not protect you, in fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You’ve got to pay.

“You’ve got to pay your bills.”

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, by the way, concerns the “collective defence” principle that “an attack against one ally is considered an attack against all allies”. It’s previously come up when two civilians in Poland – a Nato member - were killed by missiles reportedly belonging to Russia.

Thinking Hannibal Lecter is real – and praising him

Trumpbizarrely praised fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter during his rally speech in New Jersey earlier this year.

The former US president called the "late, great” cannibalistic character played by Anthony Hopkins in the 1991 film Silence of The Lambs a "wonderful man" and asked the crowd if anyone had seen the famous horror movie.

Basically all of his Iowa rally from 2022

Trump has delivered plenty of rampling speeches on the campaign trail during his political career, but one of his strangest came when he stopped off in Sioux City, Iowa a few years back. There are all sorts of reasons why this is one of the oddest performances of his life.

He started by claiming that you can't walk down the street in Chicago without getting hit over the head with a baseball bat, before rambling about children and joking that "if you don't like your child, leave it to charity."

Trump finished it all off by promoting a lie about baby formula – recap the 10 oddest moments from the speech here.

Shouting for the lights to be turned off

Donald Trump Urges Crowd to Chant 'Turn Off the Lights' | NBC Newswww.youtube.com

One of the oddest moments from Trump’s campaign leading up to his election in 2016 came during a speech in the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He was speaking when the lights in the venue were cut, leading Trump to tell the audience in a chant of "turn down the lights”. Sure enough, the venue obliged and he finished the speech on a dimly-lit stage.

Claiming he brought back the word "Christmas"

Remember when the 'woke' left stole Christmas? Of course not - but Trump attempted to convince the crowd at a 2023 rally that he 'brought back' the words 'Merry Christmas'.

The former president was greeted with cheers from Republican fans as he insisted the 'woke' had taken the phrase before he intervened.

"One of the first things I said in 2015 when I was campaigning, I said 'We will bring back Merry Christmas' because these woke department stores they don't want to use the word Christmas", he told the crowd.

"We brought that back, we did a lot of things."

When he claimed he had bigger crowds than Bruce Springsteen

Trump came in for derision on social media after claiming the crowd at his New Jersey rally was bigger than a Bruce Springsteen concert earlier this year.

It all came during a rally at the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey in early May. Claims by Trump and his team have stated that 80,000 to 100,000 people came to the rally, but other footage raises doubts towards these claims.

During the speech, Trump said: "Is there anything better than a Trump rally? These liberal singers, they actually vote for me. You know, like Bruce Springsteen. We have a much bigger crowd than Bruce Springsteen. Right?"

People on social media disputed the size of the crowd that came to support Trump. While a spokesperson for the city of Wildwood claimed that up to 100,000 people attended the rally, the audience appeared to get smaller as the end of Trump’s 90-minute speech approached.

It's even stranger when you consider the misinformation surrounding the rally - given that Trump ally Roger Stone was fact-checked after claiming to show tens of thousands of people who had turned out to see the former president at a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey.

As it turns out, the picture was actually an image of a Rod Stewart concert from 1994 which took place in Rio De Janeiro.

Trump glitching

Footage surfaced recently of the former US president appearing to ‘glitch’ for more than 30 seconds during a speech to the National Rifle Association in Texas.

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