5 Bizarre Moments from Trump’s Campaign Kickoff; From Claiming the Wall Was ‘3 Weeks’ Away, To Insisting He Could ‘Solve’ Russia-Ukraine in ’24 Hours’

Donald Trump held a pair of campaign events on Saturday to kick his 2024 campaign into high gear — and they went exactly as you might have expected.


Trump declared his intention to run for president months ago, though his campaign hasn’t done a whole lot of mobilization since then, and there have been recurring questions about whether he’ll be able to secure enough support to again pursue the Oval Office. News from the former president’s de facto campaign kickoff was somewhat overshadowed by the death of Tyre Nichols (which Trump condemned an interview between campaign events in New Hampshire and South Carolina), but we’ve gathered some of the most notable moments here.

Of course, Trump’s political conduct remains unconventional (to put it mildly), so his campaign launch entailed plenty of bizarre moments, strange claims, and everything in between. Here’s a look at some of the highlights:

1. Trump Suggests the Border Wall Was 3 Weeks Away from Completion


During his first speech of the day in Salem, NH, Trump bragged about the “hundreds of miles of wall” built on his watch, and he criticized the Joe Biden administration for not completing its construction on the U.S.-Mexican border. Trump suggested his administration could have completed the wall in three weeks, but was held up by legal challenges, and also he spoke of taking money away from the military to fund the wall’s construction.

“They stopped the wall construction,” Trump said. “We have built hundreds of miles of wall, but they stopped the construction. Three weeks, it could have been [built]. The addition, because we added a lot more than we originally said we’re going to do. We had to wait 2.5 years because the Democrats sued us…”


For years, Trump went on and on about how he’d secure the U.S. southern border by building the wall and getting Mexico to pay for the construction costs. Neither of those things happened by the time his presidency was over, but Trump glossed over that as he waxed on about Mexico sending criminals into America.

2. Trump Claims His Paying Next to Nothing in Taxes Gave Him Incentive to Create Jobs


During his second speech of the day in Columbia, SC, Trump complained about being the subject of multiple investigations, particularly those involving his taxes and his business’ financial fraud. Since Trump’s returns show that he paid no federal income taxes in 2020, the ex-president oddly claimed he took the taxes he didn’t pay and used that to create jobs.

They said he’s very wealthy but he did not pay a lot of tax. But you know what we did? We created tremendous jobs because that incentivized us to pay and create tremendous amounts of jobs. We have a country where it is all about incentives. You have to incentivize people and they are taking the incentives away.

This was part of a broader Trump diatribe about the supposed “weaponization” of the Justice Department.

3. Trump Lauds Congressman Who Heckled Obama at the State of the Union


Trump gave a special shoutout to Representative JoeWilson (R-SC), fondly recalling when Wilson shouted “You Lie” at former President Barack Obama in the middle of his 2009 State of the Union address.

That voice was so beautiful as he called it out in Congress. I thought it was brilliant. That was done from the heart…You took a little heat at the time. People love you for that because it showed love of your country.

4. Trump Claims the Taliban Can’t Fight at Night Because They Don’t Have ‘Binoculars’


Trump went on a curious tangent where he ripped the Biden administration over the chaos in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over Kabul as the U.S. was withdrawing forces from the country. This entailed Trump once again railing at Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley for suggesting it would be cheaper for the U.S. to leave its military craft in Afghanistan than have everything moved out.


In this sequence, Trump had a weird moment when he described the Taliban as “very good fighters,” but “they never fight at night because they don’t have binoculars. We have given them brand new thousands of binoculars better than what we have far better than what we have.”

5. Trump Claims He Could ‘Solve’ the Russia-Ukraine Conflict in ’24 Hours’