Leaked videos on social media show President Donald Trump doing a shock assassination joke, ad-libbing a line during a speech at his crypto investors’ gala.
On Thursday night, Trump held a gala dinner for the top 220 purchasers of Trump’s “$TRUMP” meme coin, a scheme that critics from across the political spectrum have nuked as a corrupt enrichment scam. The “winners” were not publicly disclosed and the event was closed to the press.
But multiple videos from the event leaked on social media, posted by attendees like top $TRUMP memecoin investor and multi-billionaire Justin Sun, crypto entrepreneur Ciara Sun, attendee Christoph Heuermann, and others.
At one point during the speech, a loud pop is heard offstage. Trump pauses, then makes a reference to the assassination attempt that left him bloodied. The crowd went wild:
(POP)PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Whoops! My ear!CROWD: (LAUGHTER) Fight! Fight! Fight!PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (POINTS TO EAR) That was amazing. Very strange noise. That brings back some not-such-good memories.
Other clips show Trump doing his famous Trump dance as he takes the stage and attacking former President Joe Biden and ex-VP Kamala Harris.
Hours before the event, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the dinner and the secrecy surrounding it, insisting it was a purely “private” event and telling reporters, “The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner, it’s not taking place here at the White House.”
But one
Heuermann wrote on Instagram that while the interactions with Trump were not what he expected, he was satisfied with the event:
“I got to see some very rich crypto billionaires. But the majority of the crowd were young professionals from the crypto space hailing mostly from Europe. A fair share of Chinese and a few Americans, but a great diversity of most European countries. People working mostly for crypto exchanges, funds, market makers or just trading themselves. Very nice networking.”
He wrote that Trump “didn’t interact with the crowd other than enjoying being celebrated. Even VIP token holders (I know some) couldn’t speak or even shake hands with the president. It was still well worth it to experience the president live and watch his mightily secured arrival and departure.”
Watch above via X/Twitter and Instagram.