Trump Wanders Rally Stage in Long, Awkward Silence After Microphone Fail

Former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump ’s microphone cut out during a campaign stop in Michigan on Friday night, leaving him fuming on stage in silence for a lengthy 17 minutes.

“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary—it‘s not ‘love,’ it‘s not ‘respect,’“ Trump said shortly into his speech, at which point his microphone died. Trump’s most beautiful word is unlikely to be “audio,” or “technician”.

If his comments earlier in the day are any indication, however, he was likely primed to say that the “most beautiful word” is actually “tariff.”

In any event, Trump took the tech fail in his stride—literally, as he meandered around the stage in silence while the crowd gave periodic chants of approval.

After obtaining a working mic, Trump said he would refuse to pay whoever was responsible for either providing or setting up the equipment.

“I won’t pay the bill to this stupid company,” he griped. “If it goes out again, I’ll sue the ass off that company.”

Friday‘s “complicated business”—as a graphic on-screen at the rally described it—comes just a few days after another of Trump’s events took an unexpected turn. Rather than continue taking questions at a town hall event Monday in Pennsylvania, Trump decided to bob his head to 40 minutes of music.

Read more at The Daily Beast.