Trump says a ballroom heckler ‘broke up my punch line’

Donald Trump has found a ballroom critic he can’t blame on Obama: a guy in the crowd. At Monday’s rally in Corinth, Mississippi, a protester started shouting while Trump was mid-sentence, and Mediaite reports the shout as “Shove that ballroom up your a**!” Trump’s reply: “Oh, go home. Go home. Go home.”

Then came the theory. “You know, they’re paid protesters. They get paid $250 by, they think it’s Soros,” he said. He offered no evidence for the fee or for who pays it. Then came the grievance: “I was just at the punch line too.”

The punch line, he said, was that the White House must be “beautiful, pristine.” By our math, he had wrapped up the White House bit about 80 seconds before the shouting and moved on to exports, poverty and jobs. That didn’t stop him: “For $250, he broke up my punch line and it was a beauty.”

Most comedians would kill for a heckler who waits for the punch line. Trump’s, by his own account, did it for $250. He says the protesters are “a little late today,” and “they’re getting tired of being thrown out.”