Donald Trump told supporters that Savannah Guthrie went “totally crazy” during the NBC Town Hall on October 15. Speaking to a group of seniors in Fort Myers, Florida, the following morning, the president accused the TODAY co-host of ruining a “pleasurable evening” for him. “That was a nice evening,” Trump said of the Miami event. “I have somebody going totally crazy. I told you. I told you that … I understand that worked out very well last night, that’s what the word is. Another evening in paradise I call it.”
Guthrie spent much of the town hall grilling an increasingly agitated Trump about white supremacy, QAnon, his tax returns, and his Twitter habits. The conversation nearly derailed when Guthrie asked him why he tweeted out an absurd conspiracy theory that claims his opponent, Joe Biden, allegedly had all of SEAL Team Six murdered to cover up that Osama bin Laden wasn’t actually dead. Trump insisted that since he retweeted the theory from someone else, he couldn’t be blamed. “You’re the president.
You’re not like someone’s crazy uncle who can retweet whatever,” Guthrie responded. Trump called one of her questions “cute.” In his October 16 event with Florida seniors, the president also slammed Biden, whose ABC Town Hall aired at the same time. He complained that host George Stephanopoulos only gave Biden “softballs” and didn’t ask him about his son, Hunter Biden and his ties to Ukrainian company Burisma, a topic Trump has been pushing as Election Day nears.
Trump will likely not be happy to hear that the Biden event drew in 13.9 million viewers compared to his 10.7 million, according to our sister site, Variety. Biden’s town hall was an exceedingly calmer affair, to the point that Trump’s campaign advisor, Mercedes Schlapp, attempted to insult the former VP by comparing it to an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. That backfired.