Politics
Trump is terrible at town halls. He should keep doing them.
Town hall-style events offer presidential campaigns a counterpoint to the one-way discourse of massive rallies. Candidates typically use these events as a way to humanize themselves, and voters are more than happy to directly question the candidates trying to earn their votes. But because dialogue is the last thing that former President Donald Trump wants, the town hall is a uniquely horrible format for him.
From cutting off questions so he could “do a music” (his words), to rambling far beyond the original point of the questions asked of him, each of Trump’s town halls over the last week has been uniquely disastrous. There were a few moments between his meandering diatribes in which he mustered up the pretense of caring about his supporters’ concerns, but by continuously pulling the spotlight back to himself, again and again Trump missed opportunities to show empathy with struggling Americans.
By continuously pulling the spotlight back to himself, again and again Trump missed opportunities to show empathy with struggling Americans
“Based on the inflation and weak job market, it seems like a big stretch that I’ll ever be able to own a home,” a college student who’ll be voting for the first time told Trump at a town hall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Sunday. “What is your plan to help bring down inflation and make life more affordable for Americans like me who are just starting off?”Most candidates would love to get that kind of opportunity to offer up specific plans to appeal to the youth vote and talk about housing. Trump instead thanked the young woman for using the term “American dream,” which she didn’t use, and then he ranted about zoning laws and interest rates:
The biggest thing, two things. Make the economy good, so you get a lot of money, right? Make the economy good. And the other thing is interest rates. We’re going to get interest rates. Right now, you can’t get money. Even if you had a good job, you’re paying 10%, you’re paying 11%, 12%, and you can’t get it. When I was president, it was 2.2% interest, and now, and the money was all over the place, and now you can’t get the money. So we’re going to make sure that you can get the money.
That’s not how any politician who cares about a voter and her concerns would answer that question, and the reductive wonder that is “make the economy good” couldn’t have been very inspiring. Most candidates would spend these final days working on being more responsive to what voters are asking. What stands out about Trump’s town halls then is his utter disdain for audience members in favor of pivoting back to his poorly thought-out talking points.
While the impromptu music-listening session at last week’s town hall in Oakes, Pennsylvania, drew more attention, it’s worth clocking how far afield he went while responding to one of the few questions that he took. As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted, Trump’s answer to a question about how he would lower grocery prices included accusations that immigrants are taking “Black population jobs and Hispanic population [jobs],” a boast that the Border Patrol endorsed him and the lie that he won’t let go about Haitian migrants in Ohio. His answer also encouraged everyone to go out and vote on “January 5th.” You may notice that none of those remarks addresses grocery prices. In fact, Trump’s mass deportation plan, if carried out, is a surefire way to cause food prices to skyrocket.During his women-only Fox News town hall on Wednesday, an audience member told Trump that during the previous year she’d broken her neck, was denied assistance, and couldn’t pay for daycare. She asked what he was going to do to help parents afford children. This was his full response:
It’s not fair. You never heard of Ivanka, right? Ivanka. My daughter drove me crazy on this. We had the simplest, most beautiful tax — you know, I gave you the largest tax cuts in the history of our country, OK, larger than the Reagan cuts, larger — but my daughter Ivanka, she said, “Dad, we have to do tax credits for women,” you know, for the child tax credits. She was driving me crazy. Then I did it and I got it just about done. “Dad, you’ve got to double it up.” I said, “Ivanka!” It was actually more complicated than the entire bill, but I got it done, and what we’re going to do and I’m going to — because I understand exactly what you’re saying. We’re going to readjust things so that it’s fair to everybody, ‘cause it’s really not fair to everybody. But we have a lot, and we’re going up higher, but we’re also going to readjust because you have to make some readjustments. It’s unfair to some people and we’re not going to have that. But she was the one that got it started. You know, those were our credits, those were not the Democrat credits. A lot of Republicans said rightfully, “Don’t do it because we’ll never get credit for that.” You know, we’re not known for that. But the truth is, I wanted to put it all in the form of the tax cuts. So I got the maximum tax cut, but we’re also bringing down the taxes for companies and for people. We’re bringing it down to 15% and for companies, only if you make your product, build your product in the USA. Otherwise you don’t get it.
Unlike the other events he’s participated in lately, Thursday’s Univision town hall with Hispanic voters featured questioners who were skeptical of Trump but looking for a reason to back him. In what was a disaster from start to finish, Trump did not deliver on that opportunity. Viral reactions from audience members help illustrate how poorly Trump responded to a former supporter who was looking for a reason to support him again.
But such empathy comes rarely, if at all, from Trump.
These failures to connect are striking when you compare Trump to his predecessors. Former President Bill Clinton was the master of the town hall, adept at connecting with voters, answering their questions and acknowledging their struggles. It was his performance in the second presidential debate in 1992, the first to be held in a town hall format, that likely clinched the election for candidate Clinton. Even former President Barack Obama, who could come across as too cerebral and lecturing at times, at least was able to empathize with the problems Americans were facing.But such empathy comes rarely, if at all, from Trump. Voters bring him problems he could potentially solve if he were elected president, and many seem to quickly realize they’ve wasted their time. The town hall is supposed to foster conversations or at the very least give voters the impression that they’re being heard, rather than just listening to another stump speech. But in pitching their concerns to Trump, they may as well be talking to the wall he’s still promising to build.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for BLN Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.
President Donald Trump is blaming fellow Republicans as his endorsed candidate, Ken Paxton, appears to be in a fierce struggle for a Senate seat in Texas with Democratic challenger James Talarico in a state the GOP has long taken for granted.
Trump, in a lengthy post to Truth Social Thursday, singled out longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove and Sen. John Cornyn, the incumbent who failed to secure the president’s endorsement in a heated primary.
Rove and Cornyn, Trump said, are doing “everything possible” to make it harder for Paxton to defeat Talarico, a state lawmaker and Presbyterian seminarian who is making a suprisingly strong run for Senate in deep red Texas.
“They are hurting Texas and, more importantly, hurting the United States of America!” Trump wrote. “If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career.”
Cornyn, a longtime fixture in Texas politics, lost his bid for reelection in a contentious Republican primary in which he and his supporters portrayed Paxton as a deeply flawed candidate. As Election Day approaches, public polling over the past two months has shown Talarico with a narrow edge against Paxton, the state’s attorney general.
Trump urged his supporters to back Paxton.
“Your favorite President (ME!) is asking all of those who supported Senator John Cornyn to UNITE, and immediately switch your support to Ken Paxton,” Trump said. “He will be a Great Senator, just like he is a Great Attorney General. “
The race has also become one of the most expensive non-presidential battles. Talarico raised $64 million this summer — the largest third-quarter haul of any Senate candidate in history. He has raised more than $134 million since launching his campaign last year.
Paxton raised $18 million in the third quarter of 2026 and last month announced a new $20 million ad buy. Earlier this month, though, a Trump operative told POLITICO that MAGA Inc. and its affiliates are could spend nearly $45 million on direct mail, TV and digital advertising in Texas through Oct. 12.
Already, $235 million has been spent by outside conservative groups and party committees against Talarico as national Republicans scramble to boost Paxton.
Some Republicans have grown concerned that the cost of the Texas race is diverting money needed in other states and have expressed frustrations with Paxton after leaked audio showed him blaming Trump for his woes.
Trump easily won Texas in 2024, winning just over 56% of the vote. But concerns about Republicans’ chances this November have surged as the president’s approval rating plummets.
Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said he thinks Vice President JD Vance and other Republicans are wrong to move away from the party’s traditional embrace of free-market economics — and that their shift could create an opening for a “pro-freedom” movement.
“I think they are in error,” Daniels said in an interview when asked about Vance’s criticism of economist Milton Friedman, who championed free-market capitalism.
“I think what Vance is saying is that there are aspects to the free market which can be disruptive of culture and tradition. I mean, that’s what the free market does. It’s dynamic,” he told Blue Light News. “It’s the only mechanism, in my view, for preserving the American dream, and that’s the most important element of our culture.”
The vice president’s intra-party critics have argued that Vance has been moving away from free-market economics and toward a larger role for the government in shaping the economy in his defense of the Trump administration’s economic policies, especially its wide-ranging tariffs.
“What the president is doing is changing 40 years of a failed bipartisan consensus in Washington, D.C., that has sold out American workers and destroyed the underlying economic strength of the United States of America,” Vance said in a Fox News interview last year.
The move is seen by some as Vance testing a more populist and protectionist message as he eyes the Republican presidential nomination in 2028.
But the two men were at one point closer politically. In Vance’s bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance described Daniels as his “political hero.” Daniels has said that Vance sought his counsel on running for office in 2018 and Daniels advised against it because it was likely to be a bad year for Republicans.
The vice president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Daniels’ remarks.
Daniels recently released his new book, “Impatience Is a Virtue.” In it, the veteran of Indiana politics — who also led the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush — detailed his career championing the free market.
Daniels told Blue Light News that President Donald Trump was both a “symptom” and “a propellant” of voters’ discontent, pointing to their “feeling of being patronized, condescended, looked down on, ignored, disrespected.” And Trump’s political success came from his ability to unite and represent these discontented voters.
Still, Daniels argued the evolution of the Republican Party under Trump has created room for a “pro-freedom party” that champions economic freedom and individual autonomy.
“Whether that is the next iteration of this Republican Party or you find some other vehicle, I don’t know,” he said. “But I think that there’s a need, and as I say, there’s certainly, I think, a market for that viewpoint waiting to be expressed by somebody.”
The former governor, now back at Purdue University as the interim president after leading the school for a decade until 2022, sidestepped a question about his party identification and another one on whether he sees Vance emerging as the “pro-freedom” candidate.
“It’s all TBD; I don’t know,” he said of Vance.
Daniels also defended his view on another 2028 hopeful, Democrat Pete Buttigieg, who was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, during the tail end of Daniels’ governorship.
In his book, Daniels said Buttigieg is smart, but his principal asset that excites Democratic activists is his sexual identity.
Buttigieg became the first openly gay person confirmed to be a Cabinet secretary when he was tapped to lead then-President Joe Biden’s Transportation Department. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This differentiates him in a way that would be appealing to large portions of the core Democratic electorate,” he said. “Absent that, he would be a less likely national figure.”
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Two women this week sued former GOP Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and two others — including a former state legislator — in federal court and accused the men of engaging in an alleged sex trafficking scheme during a time when Gaetz was still in Congress.
The lawsuit, which seeks damages from Gaetz and other defendants, was filed in Orlando by two women who were in their early 20s when they first met Gaetz. The women are not named in the lawsuit. The details mirror allegations that were at the center of a House Ethics Committee probe that found Gaetz had sex with a minor, solicited prostitutes and used illegal drugs.
“The defendants collectively used their public office, power, and wealth to prey on the economic vulnerability of the plaintiffs to commit the acts outlined below,” states the 38-page lawsuit.
That House probe helped derail Gaetz’s bid to become attorney general under President Donald Trump. He resigned from his Northwest Florida congressional seat to seek the post but decided to withdraw his name ahead of a potentially messy confirmation battle in the Senate.
Gaetz, who has repeatedly denied he ever had sex with a minor, said he would vigorously contest the allegations in the lawsuit.
“I look forward to taking the plaintiffs’ depositions because much of the conduct alleged against me is false,” Gaetz said in a text message. “The lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a Congressional committee report that didn’t allow me to confront my accusers. Now I will finally have that chance.”
The civil suit is the latest development in the long-running scandal involving Gaetz, a former ally of Trump who has continuously denied any involvement in underage sex or trafficking of women after news broke in 2021 that the Justice Department was investigating him.
The lawsuit this week by Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 was first reported by the Miami Herald. It alleges that Gaetz and former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg “coordinated the recruitment, payments, drugs and travel to obtain commercial sex acts from young women.” The lawsuit includes former Florida legislator and lobbyist Chris Dorworth because his Central Florida home was the site of a party where he allegedly “participated in the activities alleged there.”
Greenberg is serving an 11-year federal sentence after he pleaded guilty to multiple federal offenses including underage sex trafficking of a minor and wire fraud. Greenberg cooperated with federal investigators who were probing Gaetz but the U.S. Department of Justice closed the investigation without filing charges.
The lawsuit says it “arises from the recruitment and sexual exploitation” that occurred from 2017 through January 2019 and included trips to various locations such as Las Vegas, New York City and the Bahamas. It accuses Gaetz and Greenberg of making promises to help the two women financially or with college bills.
“They led her to believe they would resolve her financial needs as long as she continued to perform sexual acts for them and their associates,” the lawsuit states about Jane Doe 1. “They used the age, wealth and political power gap between themselves and Jane Doe 1 to keep her compliant and silent.”
Jane Doe 2, the lawsuit states, was “paid less” than promised and “through this pattern defendants caused Jane Doe 2 to believe she would lose her education and serious financial harm if she stopped performing sexual acts.”
Stencer Kuvin, a West Palm Beach attorney representing the two women, said in an email that federal law designed to protect sex trafficking victims has a 10-year statute of limitations “which potentially could run [out] next year based upon the allegations in the complaint.”
Gaetz, a firebrand and ally of Trump, was once seen as a potential candidate for Florida governor or attorney general. Since he left Congress, he has hosted his own show on the One America News Network and he was appointed to the board of a nonprofit charged with distributing proceeds from a settlement Florida received after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill along the Gulf Coast.
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