Trump shatters record for longest convention speech in HISTORY with at 92-minutes... where he complains about electric charging stations and calls D.C. a 'horrible killing field'
- His long oration featured complaints about charging stations and rivals
- His 2020 speech lasted for an hour and 10 minutes, which beat Bill Clinton's
Former President Donald Trump broke his own record for the longest convention acceptance speech ever – blowing past schedule as he vented about electric cars and made jokes about Kim Jong-un.
Trump's 2020 speech ran for 70 minutes, which was itself a record for keeping delegates in their seats before the big balloon drop. But this one, which came days after he survived an assassination attempt, ran for more than an hour and a half: clocking 92 minutes.
There were long periods in the final third of his remarks where the Fiserv arena crowd was nearly silent during parts of his monologue, although the audience perked up and cheered when he joked about Kim or tossed out observations about the Taliban.
Trump's convention speech began with a dramatic retelling of terrifying moment when a man fired on him at his Pennsylvania rally Saturday, and the survivor of the assassination attempt held the crowd rapt attention.
About 20 minutes in, he pivoted to attacks on prosecutors and the criminal cases against him.
Then, he ran through a series of policy preferences, vowing to boost U.S. energy production and stem an immigrant 'invasion', before returning to many of the pet peeves and drawing on materials he shares at his standard rallies.
Former President Donald Trump spoke for more than 90 minutes, toping his own record for longest convention speech
The indoor arena setting, even though it was packed with adherents decked out in red white and blue, had a different vibe than his outdoor rallies and airport hangar events.
Crossing the 70-minute mark, he warned of a wave of illegal immigration, while a chart showing migrant encounters at the border showed on the jumbo-tron inside the arena.
‘They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums,’ Trump said of migrants.
At that point, Trump had already topped his own record. (Bill Clinton's famously long 1996 speech, which was criticized for being over-long, also topped an hour. That's according to stats kept by the American Presidency Project at UC-Santa Barbara and flagged by Politico).
Trump's faithful gave him laughs and applause, but the energy in the room wavered during long passages, with Trump sometimes reading in monotone.
Trump continued to complain about electric vehicles, although this time he didn't tee off on the driving times. Instead he focused on the high cost of constructing charging stations.
'They build eight charges in a certain location in the Midwest, 8 charges for $9 billion ... Think of it they spent $9 billion on eight chargers, three of which didn’t work,' he said.
Trump tore into electric vehicle charging stations, calling them a rip-off
'It’s nice to get along with someone that has a lot of nuclear weapons,’ Trump said in a passage about Kim Jong-un
Trump spoke for more than an hour and a half before the balloons finally dropped in Milwaukee
He offered praise for Hungary’s Viktor Orban, then ran through territory that Russia seized under previous administrations. ‘Under President Trump, Russia took nothing,’ he said.
By that point, there were long silences among the crowd in the convention hall. People who had seats used them, while people in the aisles on the floor kept standing.
The crowd perked up when he improvised the line about North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
‘Kim Jong-un, I got along very well with him. It’s nice to get along with someone that has a lot of nuclear weapons,’ Trump says, earning a laugh.
Trump also used a rally-tested line about Hannibal Lecter when complain about illegal immigration. 'The late great Hannibal Lecter: He’d love to have you for dinner,' he quipped.
'This was the first good thing that's happened to Democrats in the last three weeks,' said former Obama advisor David Axelrod, who has been raising concerns about President Biden's weaknesses as a candidate, in comments on CNN mainly about the attacks.
Audience members put their hands together several times when Trump threw out some red meat. 'We will not have men playing in women’s sports,' he said in one applause line, before making an unsubstantiated claim about murders in the nations capital.
'Our nation’s capital, which is a horrible killing field,' is how Trump put it. 'They go to look at the Washington Monument, they end up getting stabbed and killed and shot.
D.C. crime statistics show a 26 percent drop in homicide in 2024 compared to 2023.
At a convention where much of the attention centered on his personal biography, with testimonials by family members and videos packed with images of Trump with celebrities from Oprah to Don King, Trump made time for some of his tax proposals.
One was about making changes to the laws governing treatment of workers who earn much of their earnings through tips.
'Everybody loves waitresses and caddies and drivers … let them keep their money,' Trump said.
