Perplexed CNN Anchor Quizzes GOP Commentator About Trump’s Repeated Mentions of Hannibal Lecter

CNN’s Pamela Brown just wanted to understand — why does former President Donald Trump keep talking about fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter?

While filling in for Jim Acosta on Monday, Brown asked GOP strategist Shermichael Singleton what the reasoning was behind Trump’s repeated mentions of Hannibal Lecter during his rallies. The segment also touched on how Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has latched on to characterizing these references as “weird” — and Brown, Singleton, and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona seemed to agree with that assessment:

Brown: Shermichael, I want to go to you first as a Republican. I mean, we just heard… It was objectively strange. I mean, it kind of breaks your brain to try to understand what he was saying.

Singleton: It’s interesting the, I guess, “comedy,” a little bit that Trump is sort of playing around with at some of these rallies with Hannibal Lecter. There was a new a new one that I’ve never heard before. I don’t know what the angle here is. I’m assuming it’s just to excite people. Vice President Harris and the “weird,” you know, she’s testing out some some messaging here.

Brown: But is he giving her ammo?

Singleton: I mean, look, I think maybe it plays into it a little bit, but then I think on the other side, Republicans will say “The best they got is just ‘weird’?” I mean, I think both sides will point to this contrasting picture that the messaging isn’t quite where it needs to be. The fundamentals, I think, have to change — the economy, inflation, cost of living, immigration, foreign policy — and that’s where I think we’ll see over the next several weeks. Both candidates will probably hone in more on that message.

Cardona: You know, I actually think, though, that, Donald Trump saying those things… You know, we can all laugh about it and chuckle, but it kind of plays into something that a lot of the electorate already believes about him. I mean, Hannibal Lecter — he even talks about how he comes from an insane asylum. I don’t know why he’s obsessed with him. Birds of a feather, maybe?

Singleton: Maybe he likes the movie, Maria! It’s a good movie!

Cardona: I don’t know. And so I think, I think it focuses on the fact that Donald Trump is unhinged, not fit to be president United States. And this, while, Vice President Harris will point out that it’s weird because it’s freaking weird, but it will go to the bigger themes and messages that you just talked about, Shermichael, but I think in a broader way, it is, it goes back to–

Singleton: Can he joke a little bit, Maria?

Cardona: It goes back to the fact that he is completely unfit for office.

Watch the video above via CNN.