Dan Mitchinson: US correspondent on Donald Trump's impromptu dance performance at a Pennsylvania town hall

A campaign event for Donald Trump went in an unexpected direction in Pennsylvania.

Trump cut the town hall event short yesterday, when he stopped taking questions and swayed on stage to music for 39 minutes. 

He also reminded his supporters to vote in January - despite the US election being set to take place next month.

US correspondent Dan Mitchinson says his rival Kamala Harris has responded in a post on X.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
International correspondence with Ends and Eye Insurance, Peace of Mind
for New Zealand Business. Jan the Simpson, US correspondent with
US NOW Dan, Hello, Hello, what did you make of
Donald Trump's epic music list?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
He doesn't have rhythm? We know that. I mean, uh yeah,
I mean you've been going over some of the songs.
I mean Ymca and Shinead O'Connor and James Brown, I
mean Kamala Harris sent out a tweet saying, I hope
he's okay. I mean it takes a.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Level of confidence. I Dan, you people are known for
your confidence in the States, but that is that's next
level to play nine tracks at people and just stand there.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
It is. It is a one writer. I think it
was with the Washington Post word I feel I've lost
my reality, which I think may sum up best what
happened there. I mean, you know, is this Trump being Trump?
Or is this something along the lines of Joe Biden
and his eccentricity. I honestly don't know. Why would you
be doing something like this three weeks before the election.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, because we're talking about him?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah yeah, I guess so, I guess so. And again
this was this happened in Pennsylvania. A couple of members
of the audience at one of his rallies fainted because
of the heat, and uh, you know, so he said,
you know, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna switch switch us
off right now. We're not gonna do any questions. Justice
listen to this music. And he says, who the hell
wants to hear questions? Right, And then all of a
sudden he goes into his little you know that we've

(01:21):
seen him do before, but not for whatever it was
a half hour or thirty five minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Did you know, though, Dan, that apparently he actually does
rate his playlist and apparently he likes to DJ on
the private jet.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
That I did not know.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, like, this is not this is not unusual for him.
He actually does. He backs himself as a purveyor of
quality tunes.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, I guess we'll have to nickname him something cool
like Grandmaster D or something like that if he doesn't
get j Trump.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
I mean there, yeah, dad joke right on the spot. Hey,
So the election, though, I mean, despite bright spots like this,
apparently it's making you people feel quite miserable.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well it is, I think, I mean, you you're feeling
stressed out. I mean, you're not alone, even if you're
not from the US and you're watching our election from
over New Zealand unfold over here. There's a survey from
Forbes that found about sixty one percent of us say
that it's affecting our mental health. We've got anxiety and
stress and feelings of fear when you think about the election.
And depending on the generation you were born into, I
think the younger ones like gen z Or saying we're

(02:20):
more stressed, where some of the older folks, you know,
the over fifties and sixties and seventies, are just saying,
you know, get on with it. But I know for
a fact, and you may mock this, but I think
it's also impacting those people who report on politics too.
You know, a lot more people in the last decade
over here have gotten out of the business and they
switch professions, and many that I've talked to at least
see you know, it's a lot of it's the stress

(02:41):
not only covering politics, but the reaction that they get
from from the public, you know, the hammering about what
they what they do, that's taking a toll on them.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, well, maybe if they just did a bit of job,
they wouldn't get a hammering. I thought about that.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Wow, okay, I guess so, yes, so prison company excluded.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
I mean obviously. But the reason I say that is
because the movie just got stats out again how low
the trust the media is, right.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
It is. It's down to something like thirty one percent,
where only you know, people say, well, you guys are
sort of trustworthy here. And you know, the Gallup which
does all these polls, goes back to the early nineteen
seventies and back then, I mean, the trust was about
seventy percent, seventy two percent, and then they did it
again in the nineties and they found a smaller majority,
about fifty five percent trusted the news media. So the

(03:25):
question is what's going on? And I think a lot
of this has to do where people get their news
from and how they consume news. That makes it easy
to understand why they may have the distrust, because more
people are turning into thing to sources that have really
opinions than just facts. And you know, that's fine to
a certain extent, but you know, if you get on

(03:47):
one side and you're not going to see the view
of the other, then that obviously is going to sway
your opinion on the media and the trust that you have.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
You did need a bit of balance, Hey Dan, Thank
you as always really appreciated as Dan Mitchinson, US correspondent.
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