A woman suddenly collapsed behind Donald Trump as he appeared at a rally in Kentucky, with the president looking on as the crowd sought to help her.
As first responders dealt with the emergency, Trump also asked his staffers to put on one of his favorite songs: ‘Ave Maria’ by Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti.
The dramatic scenes took place less than 30 minutes into Trump’s speech— while the president was ranting about California Governor Gavin Newsom—when a woman in the audience turned pale and looked as though she was struggling to stand.
After leaning over the railing, the woman suddenly collapsed, prompting the crowd to call out for help.
“Is there a doctor in the house?” Trump said, as he stared at the commotion behind him.
“Take your time,” he added.
Trump then decided to pass the time by playing DJ.
“Want to play a song?” he asked the crowd, some of them waving their placards over the woman to give her air.
“Do you think the people backstage are listening to me? How about Ave Maria? Ave Maria, if they are listening, Ave Maria by Pavarotti.”
The scene was reminiscent of last year, when a press conference in the Oval Office resulted in a man collapsing suddenly behind the president while he looked on.
At the time, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the daytime talk show host Trump picked to run the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, rushed to help the man to the ground.
Trump, who was sitting behind his desk, then slowly stood up as he watched the man take to the floor.
At Wednesday’s rally, the White House briefly cut the live feed after a few moments.
Trump resumed his speech several minutes later, once the woman had been assisted by medics, and jokingly blamed Newsom for the incident.
“We’re talking about Gavin Newscum,” he said.
“It doesn’t feel like a very good subject right now. It made that young lady not feel so good.”
But soon enough, the president reverted to form, declaring that the Democratic governor had “admitted he has mental problems” and “that he’s not a smart person.”
The reference appeared to be about Newsom recently opening up about being diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of five, but his mother didn’t tell him for fear he would use his disability as a crutch.
“He’s unable to read his speech, he can’t read and all of the other things he said,” Trump told the crowd.
“He said he has a lot of mental problems, and I was attacked by a reporter that said: ‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’
“I said, ‘nothing’s wrong with it, but I don’t want the President of the United States to have a cognitive deficiency’. Right?”
Newsom’s office clapped back with a post on X, declaring: “Grandpa’s talking about himself again. We wish him well — it’s never too late to seek mental treatment."
The rally was the latest leg of Trump’s so-called affordability tour, but took place against a backdrop of his deeply unpopular war in Iran.
Confusion deepened on Wednesday after Trump declared the conflict would end “soon” only to suggest hours later that there was still a way to go.
He was also cornered by Fox News on whether America’s intervention amounted to a “war” or a “little excursion,” given he had described it as both.
“Well, it’s both. It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war,” Trump replied.
“For them it’s a war, for us it turns out to be easier than we thought.”
