Former President Donald Trump has sparked widespread mockery online following his recent campaign rally in Las Vegas, where he launched into an unusual tirade about sharks and sinking boats.
During his speech on Sunday, Trump posed a hypothetical scenario he claimed "nobody's ever asked" before: whether it would be better to be electrocuted on a sinking boat or to be eaten by a shark in the ocean.
He said:
"I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight, and you're in the boat, and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery is now underwater. And there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there."
"By the way, lot of shark attacks lately, I watched some guys justifying it today. 'Well, they weren't really that angry. They bit off the young lady's leg because of the fact that they were, they were not hungry, but they misunderstood who she was."
"He said 'there's no problem with sharks, they just didn't really understand a young woman's swimming. She really got decimated and other people too, a lot of shark attacks."
Weirdly, Trump then returned to his original point though he somehow made even less sense than usual:
"So I said, there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat, do I get electrocuted? If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking, do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted? Or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?"
"Because I will tell you he didn't know the answer. He said, 'you know, nobody's ever asked me that question.' I said I think it's a good question. I think there's a lot of electric current coming to that water."
"But you know what I'd do? If there was a shark or you get electrocuted, I'll take electrocution every single time. I'm not getting near the shark."
You can hear what he said in the video below.
The bizarre nature of Trump's comments has led to a wave of ridicule on social media.
This is not the first time Trump has posed such a bizarre hypothetical between death by electrocution or death by shark. At an Iowa rally last year, he told a similar anecdote.
Speaking to a crowd in Ottumwa, he declared he would prefer electrocution over being eaten by a shark if he ever found himself on a rapidly sinking, electrically powered boat. The bizarre remarks came as Trump discussed electric boat batteries, recounting a conversation he claimed to have had with a boat manufacturer in South Carolina.
At the time, he said:
“If I’m sitting down and that boat is going down and I’m on top of a battery and the water starts flooding in, I’m getting concerned, but then I look 10 yards to my left and there’s a shark over there, so I have a choice of electrocution and a shark, you know what I’m going to take? Electrocution."
“I will take electrocution every single time, do we agree?”
Trump then shifted to criticizing sustainable energy technologies, asserting he would repeal the Biden administration’s electric vehicle mandate because "These people are crazy."