President Donald Trump briefly interrupted a campaign rally in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Friday after struggling to keep one eye open and stopping to wipe it, just days before voters cast ballots in the midterm elections.
About halfway through his address, Trump dipped a napkin into a cup of water and used it to clean his eye before resuming his remarks to supporters.
“Do you mind? I got a thing in my eye. Watch this,” Trump said.
“Ah, that’s so much better,” he added, before throwing the remaining water toward the audience behind him.
“I wish I had some little eye drops,” Trump continued.
He then turned to critics who had speculated that his health was behind the sudden cancellation of two weekend rallies.
“If I did, they’d say I was seriously ill, that there’s something wrong with me,” Trump said.
The 80-year-old president had abruptly called off planned appearances in Kansas and Iowa, prompting questions about his health even as he insisted he felt “perfect.”
Both events were later restored to his schedule on Friday, ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections.
The eye-wiping episode occurred roughly an hour into Trump’s Daytona Beach rally, where he was campaigning in races that will decide control of Congress.
President Donald Trump used a water-dipped napkin to wipe his eye during his Florida rally on Friday
US President Donald Trump points as he arrives to speak at a midterm campaign rally at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, on October 30, 2026
The rally began nearly an hour later than scheduled, continuing a pattern that has marked Trump’s events for years, particularly during the 2024 general election campaign.
On Thursday, Trump launched into a reporter who asked whether he canceled the Kansas event because he was tired of traveling.
Trump was returning from a South Carolina rally that afternoon and preparing to attend a Halloween event at the White House with First Lady Melania Trump when he was questioned about the cancellation.
He had been scheduled to travel to Salina, Kansas, on Saturday to campaign for Republican Senator Roger Marshall, who is facing an unexpectedly close reelection contest. Instead, Trump pulled out, opting for tele-rallies from Mar-a-Lago, and also canceled a planned appearance in Dubuque, Iowa. Both events were subsequently reinstated.
“Oh, you’re sick to ask that question. You are sick,” Trump told the Reuters reporter. He asked who the journalist worked for before calling him a “dope.”
Trump then mocked the reporter’s appearance, saying, “Look at this guy. He’s way out of shape,” before adding, “You are disgusting. Put yourself in shape. You look like hell.”
He continued complaining about the exchange as he moved along the press line.
“He comes to me. ‘Sir, you’re not going to go to Kansas.’ I’m not going to Kansas because he’s doing very well. I’m going to do a tele-rally. Tomorrow I’m doing Florida. He said, ‘What’s the reason?’ After doing what? Twenty-eight. He says, ‘What’s the reason for this, sir, that you’re not going to Kansas?’” Trump said, recounting the conversation moments after it happened.
“You know what the reason is?” Trump asked. “I don’t feel like I have to go to Kansas.”
A protester is escorted out as US President Donald Trump speaks at a midterm campaign rally at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, on October 30, 2026
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Earlier in the event, at least three protesters interrupted Trump’s speech. The president claimed they were being paid by billionaire Democratic donor George Soros.
One protester wore a shirt reading “Release the Files,” apparently referring to documents connected to convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Republicans also used Friday’s rally to deliver fierce attacks on Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
Republican Representative Randy Fine, one of Omar’s colleagues in the House, launched an unusually aggressive attack on Democrats and singled out Omar, Representative Rashida Tlaib and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“Many of the Democrats in Congress, they hate America,” Fine told the crowd. “It isn’t that they have a different vision for this country. It is their goal to seek our destruction,” he said.
Fine accused Omar, Tlaib and Mamdani of seeking to “overrun us with Third-World migrants who do not share our values or our faith, and who do not respect our heritage or our history.”
He also promised to introduce a motion to “expel” Omar from Congress if evidence showed that she “is not a citizen of the United States.”
Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds holds MAGA hats before tossing them to supporters awaiting President Donald Trump’s remarks at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach on October 30, 2026
Florida Republican Randy Fine, who is Jewish, said his Muslim colleague Ilhan Omar should be removed from Congress
Trump later echoed the criticism, saying Omar should not be permitted to remain in Congress.
The president also repeated a striking financial pledge: If Republicans take control of both the House and Senate, he said, every adult American citizen would receive $5,000. He added that recipients would have to promise not to spend the money overseas.
In his trademark freewheeling style, Trump moved rapidly from one subject to another, at one point reflecting on his former NBC reality show, “The Apprentice.”
“If I did not do ‘The Apprentice,’ would I still be president?” Trump asked, drawing cheers from supporters who insisted he would.
He also discussed the ongoing conflict with Iran, arguing that Tehran had been at war with the United States for decades.
“America did not start the war with Iran. Iran has been waging war with America since 1979, killing thousands and thousands of people,” Trump said.
“We’ve taken the nuclear capabilities out of the hands of Iran,” he added, referring to US military strikes.
Trump also celebrated the January arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, declaring, “We love the Venezuelan people. We won the war with Venezuela.”
Florida Republicans used the gathering as a final opportunity to make their case to voters before Election Day.
Gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds attacked Democratic rival David Jolly, a former Republican, calling him a “failed Republican” and a “fraud.”
“David Jolly is a Jolly come lately,” Donalds joked.
Republican Senator Ashley Moody also targeted Democratic challenger Angie Nixon, saying the candidates represented “stark differences” and labeling Nixon an “actual communist” because of her affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America.
“In four short days, I’m going to be your next governor,” Donalds told the cheering crowd.
