Trump Gets Backlash For Praising Hannibal Lecter & Saying Migrants Entering U.S. Are Coming From ‘Insane Asylums’

Former President Donald Trump was criticized for lauding Hannibal Lecter, the fictional serial killer from the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs while claiming that migrants are being released from “insane asylums” into the U.S. at a weekend rally.

During a speech he made at his New Jersey campaign rally on May 11, Trump claimed that “the mental institution population is down because they’re taking people from insane asylums [in foreign countries] and from mental institutions” and sending them to the U.S.

“You know what the difference is, right,” he asked the crowd. “An insane asylum is a mental institution on steroids.”

“Silence of the Lamb – has anyone ever seen The Silence of the Lambs – the late, great Hannibal Lecter,” Trump added. “He’s a wonderful man. Remember the last scene?” 

“‘Excuse me, I’m about to have a friend for dinner,’ as this poor doctor walked by,” the former president said while quoting what Lecter, who was portrayed by British actor Anthony Hopkins, at the end of the film. “But Hannibal Lecter, congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter. We have people that have been released into our country that we don’t want in our country, and they’re coming in totally unchecked, totally unvetted. And we can’t let this happen. They’re destroying our country, and we’re sitting back. And we better damn well win this election, because if we don’t, our country is going to be doomed. It’s going to be doomed.”

Trump praised Lecter and The Silence of the Lambs in the past. He even called the film one of his favorites. He referred to Lecter while repeating his claims that prisoners and mental patients have been swarming across the U.S. border.

Many X users had slammed Trump for praising a serial killer during his rally.

“At what other moment in American history could a presidential candidate praise a fictional serial killer and inspire almost no reaction at all,” journalist and historian Anne Applebaum wrote on X on May 12.

“@realDonaldTrump you know the “late, great” and “wonderful” (seriously ?!?) Hannibal Lecter was a cannibalistic serial killer, right,” Michael Steele, the former Republican lieutenant governor of Maryland, asked the former president in an X post. “But more importantly, HE IS NOT REAL. This is who MAGA Republicans want for the presidency—a man who idolizes an imaginary serial killer.”

Joe Scarborough, the co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, also responded negatively to Trump’s remarks during an appearance on his show on Monday morning.

“This is why the Biden campaign desperately wants to see more bizarre moments like this during Trump’s rallies,” Scarborough said. “I promise you, they are more upset Donald Trump is on trial right now than Donald Trump because they know when he goes out on the road, people see, the guy is just not there.”

During a rally in Dayton, Ohio, in March, Trump argued that some illegal immigrants should not be viewed as human and warned that it is going to be a “bloodbath” if he is not reelected.

While speaking at a fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, which took place at the home of the hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson on April 6, Trump claimed that America is not getting immigrants from “nice countries.” 

He instead said that they came “from prisons and jails” and told the crowd that “they’re coming in from just unbelievable places and countries, countries that are a disaster.”

The “nice countries” the former president listed in his speech were Denmark, Switzerland and Norway.

The billionaires in the crowd laughed upon hearing this.