Most podiums don’t jiggle jiggle—they stand firm and proud, as much a testament to American craftsmanship as they are a metaphor for American exceptionalism, ready at a moment’s notice to shield a speaker’s lower half from a rapt audience, no doubt as spellbound by the lectern’s lacquer finish as its lecturer’s sparkling rhetoric.
But one errant podium wiggle wiggled for sure at one of Donald Trump’s recent stops along the campaign trail, bringing shame down upon the good name of soapboxes everywhere as the former president leaned slightly too hard on it mid-speech, causing it to buckle under his weight.
“What a crappy contractor this was,” Trump quipped to laughter at the annual Minnesota GOP dinner, observing that his podium “keeps tilting to the left—like too many other things.”
