Donald Trump seemed surprised at a Florida rally on Wednesday when the crowd booed a local Republican member of the House of Representatives.
The former president made reference to GOP Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida's 28th district, who was not present at the rally, and appeared taken aback when members of the audience booed the congressman's name.
Trump was speaking at an event in Hialeah, Florida, about half an hour's drive from where his rivals for the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination were participating in their third debate.
The former president is the leading contender for the GOP's presidential nomination and continues to enjoy a major lead in polling. He has so far declined to participate in the primary debates.
Trump has 56.5 percent support from Republicans in the GOP primary, according to FiveThirtyEight's aggregate of recent polls. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis follows, with 13.9 percent. No other candidates are polling in double digits.
Gimenez is a Trump ally who endorsed the former president's reelection bid in April. He is also a Cuban American and Trump's rally was aimed at the Cuban American community in Hialeah, a suburb of Miami.
Trump initially mispronounced Gimenez' name before saying: "Do you know him?"
The question was met with booing, which seemed to take Trump by surprise.
"Oh, you don't like him?" Trump said. "What's going on? Carlos, come on. We gotta get that straightened out."
Newsweek has reached out to the Trump campaign via email for comment.
A video clip of the moment shared to social media site X, formerly Twitter, by user Acyn had been viewed more than 72,000 times as of early Thursday morning.
It wasn't clear exactly why the crowd booed the Republican congressman, who served as Trump's "surrogate" at the third GOP primary debate in Miami, according to a post on Gimenez' X account.
"We all know Trump already won the debate & will be our next GOP nominee," Gimenez wrote on X. "As a Cuban-American I'm proud to endorse President Trump & our community is proud to welcome him at the YUGE rally tonight."
Gimenez voted against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump has falsely claimed was stolen from him through voter fraud and other irregularities.
During his remarks in Hialeah on Wednesday, Trump also referenced the Miami debate that his GOP opponents were participating in. He began speaking about 20 minutes after the debate started.
"I'm standing in front of tens of thousands of people right now and it's on television. That's a lot harder to do than a debate," the former president said.
The stadium where the event took place has a capacity of about 5,200.
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Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more
