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A Donald Trump campaign town hall in suburban Philadelphia collapsed into a confused impromptu music festival Monday night after two people in the crowd suffered medical emergencies derailing a Q&A.
The former president walked on stage in Oaks, Pennsylvania, ready to fire up his base on matters of inflation, foreign policy, and especially immigration during a town hall moderated by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.
But in the end, the pair spent most of their time simply standing around on stage and occasionally dancing mildly to various pop songs and hymns after a pair of supporters apparently fainted in the hot venue.
Despite promising at several points to extend the event to compensate for the medical problems, Trump ultimately walked off stage after taking just a handful of questions from the audience.
"Those two people who went down are patriots, and we love them. And because of them, we ended up with some good music, right?" he announced to the crowd not long before leaving.
The tunes ranged from Luciano Pavarotti's rendition of ‘Ave Maria’ through 'It's A Man's World' by James Brown, 'November Rain' by Guns N' Roses, and 'Memory' from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats.
The exact nature of the medical issues, and the condition of those people, was not yet clear on Monday night. The Independent has asked the Trump campaign for comment.
Trump told the audience that both people were "OK" and "in good shape". He also said that the venue didn't have air conditioning, joking that it was "too expensive" due to inflation.
The people falling ill twice led to lengthy delays as medical personnel provided care. Trump stopped the Q&A both times to allow them to work.
In his limited town hall, consumer prices were a major focus for the three people who managed to ask questions before the doctors had to step in. Trump repeatedly said that he'd bring down costs, though he rarely gave much detail.
He did say that he would unleash the US fossil fuels industry to "drill, baby, drill!" – which he promised would slash the price of energy by half within the first 12 months of his presidency.
As often as possible, he pivoted to immigration and the US-Mexico border, repeating his controversial pledge to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport millions of illegal immigrants.
Then things took a turn. One person apparently fainted or collapsed in the crowd, and required the intervention of doctors. "That looks a little bad," Trump admitted. "This is a little bit of a tough one, I think."
After the crowd broke into song, the Christian hymn Ave Maria came on over the speakers. Then, just as the town hall was resuming, supporters pointed over to the other side of the venue and shouted "Medic! Medic!"
For the next hour or so, Trump mostly just stood on stage bopping his head to songs such as Jeff Buckley's cover of 'Hallelujah' by and Sinéad O'Connor's 'Nothing Compares 2 U', occasionally, giving the crowd some time-filling patter.
At one point, a bar chart showing border crossings at the US-Mexico frontier appeared on the projector. It was a familiar prop: Trump has claimed that turning his head to look at the chart during the assassination attempt back in July “probably saved [his] life."
“There it is! That's my favourite piece of paper anywhere in the world. I sleep with it every night. I kiss it, I kiss it," he said.
