Donald Trump was briefly silenced by an angry heckler at a Mississippi rally who shouted at the president: “Shove that ballroom up your fat a**.”
The confrontation took place Monday night at the Crossroads Arena in Corinth, Mississippi, where Trump was continuing his midterm campaign tour.
In footage from the event, Trump, 80, told the crowd: “What I have been doing in the past is walking off the stage, to the consternation of the people that protect us.”
The heckler then shouted the crude remark from the audience, prompting Trump to pause and briefly halt his speech.
“Oh, go home,” Trump replied. “Go home, go home.”
Trump smiled and laughed as the crowd reacted loudly. Supporters then broke into a chant of “USA, USA, USA.”
He went on to claim the heckler was a paid protester, saying: “He gets paid, you know they’re paid protesters, they get paid $250 by, they think its Soros.”
The protester’s remark referred to the large new ballroom Trump is constructing at the White House after the former East Wing was demolished.
The planned venue will feature lavish golden fixtures. Trump has said it will provide a safe and secure location for major events while ultimately saving taxpayers money.
However, Trump’s unpopular war with Iran and the rising cost of living have led some of his supporters to reconsider the project, viewing it as wasteful and out of touch. Midterm polling has also pointed to the possibility of significant Republican losses.
Monday’s clash was not Trump’s first confrontation with protesters on the campaign trail in recent weeks. At a South Carolina rally last week, at least six protesters interrupted the event within its first 20 minutes.
Trump responded at that rally by claiming the protesters were “all paid” and dismissing them as “a bunch of losers.”
Donald Trump was briefly silenced by an angry heckler at Monday’s Mississippi rally, who shouted: “Shove that ballroom up your fat a**.”
Trump told the heckler to “go home” and accused him of being paid to protest.
A rendering of Trump’s new White House ballroom. The president says the venue will provide a secure location for major events and save money over the long term. As opposition to his war with Iran grows, some former supporters have also turned against the project.
The interruption came as controversy continued over Trump’s White House ballroom extension. The Supreme Court allowed construction to proceed in a ruling issued on August 31.
Trump’s ballroom is expected to cost more than $600 million and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2028, according to official renderings.
Protesters also disrupted another Trump event in Ohio on October 12, underscoring how frequently hecklers have appeared at his midterm rallies.
At the Ohio rally, a protester wearing a shirt reading “Release the Epstein Files” was punched and kicked before being dragged out of the venue.
The protest triggered a frenzy in the crowd, after which Trump turned his attention to mocking the demonstrator as a “paid protester.”
‘Oh, he’s gotta’ go on a diet. He’s a fat guy, wow. Wow. Gotta’ go on a diet fast. We all do,’ Trump said to laughter.
He then repeated a joke he’s often told of protesters at rallies, that their ‘mother and father voted for me,’ to huge applause.
With the midterm elections entering the home stretch, the campaign trail in recent days became a tit-for-tat battle between Trump and his predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama.
On Saturday, Obama captured headlines by mocking Trump’s renovation of the White House, saying the gold decorations ‘looked like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.’
Obama added: ‘Guy’s building a ballroom that’s bigger than the White House! Paved over the Rose Garden, put a helicopter pad on the South Lawn and there’s gold everywhere!’
On Saturday, Obama captured headlines by mocking Trump’s renovation of the White House, saying the gold decorations ‘looked like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.’
Trump speaks during a meeting with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Oval Office in 2025
The jibe appeared to provoke Trump, with the president laying into Obama in a furious rant at his Mississippi rally on Monday.
Trump accused Obama of leaving the White House ‘filthy, dirty and broken’, and said he was ‘surprised’ by the condition that Obama allowed it to fall into.
He said he told the press to tell Obama that ‘the White House is a symbol of America and when it’s filthy, dirty and broken, when the windows are cracked, when the exterior monuments on the outside are good on one side and cracked on the other side, people notice that.’
‘This place is in bad shape, it really is. I made up for lost time because I did a job and it’s in better shape than it was built and more beautiful,’ Trump said.
He also dismissed the notion that he ‘spends all his time’ on renovations, saying he ‘literally’ does it while walking home from the Oval Office.
‘I’d walk, I’d look up, I’d say, “boy that wall is really bad, let’s go, we gotta’ fix it, fellas.” And we have really talented people, they have a great touch.’
President Barack Obama, right, meets with then President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office in 2016
Trump similarly lashed out at Obama, long an inspiration for Trump’s rise to political power, when speaking to the press earlier Monday at Joint Base Andrews.
‘For you to say it’s a Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president,’ Trump unloaded on his predecessor while addressing the press at Joint Base Andrews.
‘He’s not smart at all because of the way he ran the country. Only a stupid person would run the country like that,’ Trump said.
‘We have to explain that to Obama because he doesn’t understand it because he’s not a smart guy,’ the president continued, saying Obama did not notice ‘dirt and filth’ that had not been cleaned and walls that had not ‘been cleaned for years.’
‘Guys like Obama don’t see it… He doesn’t see broken ornaments on a building,’ Trump added, defending his updates to the White House.
