Ex-president calls Hopkins’ cannibalistic Lecter ‘late, great’ while condemning ‘people who are being released into our country’

Donald Trump on Saturday praised fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter “as a wonderful man” before segueing into comments disparaging people who have immigrated into the US without permission.

The former president’s remarks to political rally-goers in Wildwood, New Jersey, as he challenges Joe Biden’s re-election in November were a not-so-subtle rhetorical bridge exalting Anthony Hopkins’ cannibalistic Lecter in Silence of the Lambs as “late [and] great” while simultaneously condemning “people who are being released into our country that we don’t want”.

Trump delivered his address to an estimated crowd of about 80,000 supporters under the shadow of the Great White roller coaster in a 1950s-kitsch seaside resort 90 miles (144.8km) south of Philadelphia.

The occasion served for Trump to renew his stated admiration for Lecter, as he’s done before, after the actor Mads Mikkleson – who previously portrayed Lecter in a television series – once described Trump as “a fresh wind for some people”.

  • @kromem@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    He’s trying to say that the people coming into the country are dangerous criminals, but he’s done the talking points so often by now that neither he nor his audience need the connective tissue between the ideas.

    “Oh, now he’s doing the Hannibal Lecter bit? Yeah, screw illegals or whatever.”

    They have their own coded language at this point where as Trump slips more and more into dementia they still understand what their adoptive hate spewing neo-Nazi grandpa dictator is talking about.

    “And then the blargabaghehhhh…

    “Exactly. Fuck the blargabaghehhhh…”

    Edit: I don’t think I’ll ever stop laughing when I see that clip, btw.