Donald Trump’s Latest Speech: The Internet Focuses on One Moment

ANDAs the border continues to play an important political role in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, former president and current GOP candidate Donald Trump criticized the government’s immigration process during a campaign speech on Saturday, September 28, in Wisconsin.

He once again mentioned the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) app, a mobile app that provides a single portal for many CBP services, including a place where immigrants can make appointments to appear at a port of entry and carriers can may request cargo inspections.

“They have a phone app that allows people to come to our country… they must be smart immigrants because most people have no idea what the hell a phone app is,” Trump said at the Prairie Du Chien Area Arts Center in Prairie Du Chien , a city of approximately 5,500 people located on the Mississippi River.

The campaign for vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris posted a video of the moment on X (formerly Twitter) with a caption that included Trump’s comments.

Some social media users reacted to Trump’s comment by showing surprise that Trump says many don’t know what the apps are.

“I have the impression that most people know what a phone app is,” former tennis star Andy Roddick wrote in X. “It’s not 2004 anymore. It’s 2024,” another person wrote, pointing out that Trump owns his own social media platform, Truth Social, which includes an app component. Meanwhile, one commenter said: “How out of touch with reality do you have to be to believe that most people don’t know what a phone app is?”

The post from Kamala’s headquarters reflects the campaign’s latest strategy of publishing clips of Trump’s speeches and letting the internet’s viral culture take its course. The X campaign account posted other excerpts from Trump’s speech in Wisconsin, including Trump’s comments about a fly on stage.

“Oh, there’s a fly. “Oh, I wonder where that fly came from,” Trump said. “You see, two years ago I wouldn’t have had a fly here. But they change quickly. We can’t take this anymore.”

Trump did not elaborate on his comments about the insect, which came during a portion of his speech in which he discussed immigration. In response to the moment, some social media users referenced a viral incident from 2020 when a fly landed on Mike Pence’s head during the vice presidential debate against Harris.

This isn’t the first time Trump has attacked the CBP One app. Earlier this month, Trump posted about it on his Truth Social account, calling the service “Kamal’s illegal substance smuggling phone app” and vowing to shut it down.

According to the CBP website, the CBP One app launched on October 28, 2020, while Trump was still president. In January 2023, the Biden administration announced it would expand the use of the app, after which migrants began requesting visits using CBP One. The application became especially visible when the Biden administration implemented new asylum rules following the expiration of Title 42.

Read more: : Migrants seek asylum through the CBP application

If a person is not seeking asylum in the country they moved through to enter the US, or has not used the CBP One application, any asylum application made in the US will likely be rejected. However, there has been much criticism from immigration rights advocates that the CBP One application is unable to meet the demands of migrants.

Trump’s speech in Wisconsin and his focus on immigration followed Harris’ visit to the U.S.-Mexico border. It was Harris’ first appearance in the country since becoming the Democratic presidential candidate. After Friday’s visit to the border, she made remarks in Arizona projecting a more visible “tough on immigration” image.

“I reject the false choice that suggests we must choose between securing our border or creating a system that is orderly, safe and humane,” Harris said. “We can and must do both.”