The Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has made the front pages again after he said something unusual on the campaign trail.

This time, former President Trump paid tribute to the fictional cannibal drawn from the world of fantasy.

The character “Hannibal Lecter” was created by author Thomas Harris. “Hannibal the Cannibal,” as the murderous cannibal is called, became world-famous after Anthony Hopkins' interpretation in the 1991 film adaptation.

“The Silence of the Lambs” (“Nattsvermeren” in Norwegian) is supposedly one of Trump's favorite films.

-There's always a lot of silly stuff with Trump. Sometimes it's hard to know how seriously to take this, Eric Luke, a USA expert and Civita advisor, tells Nettavisen.

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– awesome man

Trump spoke about immigrants in the United States in an apparently joking tone when he suddenly praised a fictional cannibal in a 90-minute campaign speech in Wildwood, New Jersey, over the weekend.

– “The silence of the lamb.” Have any of you seen the movie “Silence of the Lambs” before? Trump asked the crowd.

– The late, great Hannibal Lecter is a wonderful man. He often had friends over for dinner. Do you remember the last scene? “Excuse me, I'm having a friend over for dinner soon,” as the poor doctor walked by. “I'm having a friend over for dinner soon.” But Hannibal Lecter, congratulations. “The late, great Hannibal Lecter,” Trump said.

We have people who are allowed to enter our country and we do not want them in our country. Trump continued: They let them in without a background check.

Trump was referring to the film's closing scene in which serial killer Hannibal Lecter speaks on the phone with FBI agent Clarice Starling, played by award-winning actress Jodie Foster.

– It is tempting to quote Karl Joachim Hambro who once said: “In the name of democracy, everyone should be allowed at any time to express the confusion in their heads.” Locke says that's what Trump is doing here.

He refers to the late journalist and conservative politician. Hambro was a popular orator with a successful career as Speaker of Parliament and editor of the magazine Morgenbladet.

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-He chatters on his way

Løkke is unable to understand Trump's Hannibal Lecter tale.

– He babbles incoherently about problems with criminals and immigrants. This is somewhat reminiscent of the incoherent speech he gave about “Nuclear Iran“No one in the English-speaking world understood the berry,” says Civita's consultant.

Locke points to a campaign speech Trump gave to a rally of 500 people in South Carolina in July 2016. The starting point was apparently that Trump should criticize then-President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.

But Trump ended up talking incoherently for 90 seconds about nuclear weapons, among other things.

One newspaper headline at the time was: “Donald Trump's rambling 90-second speech stuns the English-speaking world».

-If you copy too much of what he says, it's incoherent gibberish. He has been doing so since the 2016 election campaign. He is rarely, or almost never, able to formulate policy at all. It's difficult to use very strong words here, says Lucke.

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Hannibal mistook Hopkins

Trump has referenced the Hannibal Lecter character several times at campaign rallies when he spoke of the flow of “prison inmates and the mentally ill” across the border into the United States.

– They are allowed to enter our country directly. Hannibal Lecter is coming, he said at a campaign rally in New Hampshire earlier this year.

Trump also conflated the fictional film character Hannibal Lecter with award-winning actor Anthony Hopkins.

-Hannibal Lecter. Isn't he a great movie star? Trump said at the 2023 Iowa caucus, according to USA Today.