When choosing between dying by shark attack or electrocution, former President Donald Trump has a clear preference.
During a campaign event in Ottumwa, Iowa, on Sunday, Trump wondered aloud about how he would choose to die if he were, for some reason, out at sea on an electrically-powered boat that was sinking fast.
“But if I’m sitting down, and that boat’s going down, and I’m on top of a battery, and the water starts flooding in, I’m getting concerned,” Trump told the crowd. “But then I look 10 yards to my left, and there’s a shark over there. So I have a choice of electrocution or shark, you know what I’m gonna take? Electrocution. I will take electrocution every single time.”
Trump’s remarks on sharks came after he tore into the deficiencies and safety risks that electric boats supposedly have.
Trump told the crowd that he thinks electric boats had unwieldy designs, recounting a meeting he had with a boat manufacturer in South Carolina.
“They want to go all-electric. I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And they said, ‘The problem is that the batteries are so heavy, the boat can’t carry them. They would sink,’” Trump said at the rally.
Trump then said he had raised the possibility of being electrocuted if an electric boat were to sink while it was out on the water.
“Let’s say your boat goes down, and I’m sitting on top of this big, powerful battery. And the boat’s going down. Do I get electrocuted?” Trump said at the rally.
“And he said, ‘You know what? Honestly, nobody has ever asked me that question,’” Trump added.
Trump is well known for being a shark hater.
On July 4, 2013, two years before he first ran for president — he tweeted: “Sorry folks, I’m just not a fan of sharks – and don’t worry, they will be around long after we are gone.”
“Sharks are last on my list – other than perhaps the losers and haters of the World!” Trump added in another July 4, 2013 tweet.
And in 2020, he told supporters at a rally that he’s not on board with protecting sharks at all.
“They were saying the other night, the shark. They were saying, ‘Sharks, we have to protect them.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, wait.’ They actually want to remove all the seals in order to save the shark. I said, ‘Wait, don’t you have it the other way around?’
“It’s true,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of sharks either. I don’t know, how many votes am I going to lose?”
Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress to whom Trump is accused of giving a pre-election hush money payment, has told multiple media outlets that the former president watches “Shark Week” programs but is terrified of the oceanic predators.
“I remember arriving, and he was watching Shark Week. He made me sit and watch an entire documentary about shark attacks,” Daniels told Anderson Cooper in a March 2018 episode of “60 Minutes.”
She also told In Touch Weekly in May 2018 that Trump was “riveted” by a” Shark Week” special.
“He is obsessed with sharks. Terrified of sharks. He was like, ‘I donate to all these charities, and I would never donate to any charity that helps sharks. I hope all the sharks die,’” Daniels told In Touch Weekly. “He was like obsessed. It’s so strange, I know.”
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.
The post Trump, in a new rally rant, wondered aloud if he would rather die by electrocution or get eaten alive by a shark appeared first on Business Insider.
