President Donald Trump’s speech at the Republicans’ unusual midterm convention in Texas took a bizarre turn when the president ordered the crowd to take a weird cult-like pledge.
Trump shockingly asked the audience to promise to “cheat like hell” during the upcoming November elections in a clip that has since gone viral with tens of thousands of views.
It’s shocking to hear a U.S. president encourage voters to “cheat,” especially in Trump’s case, where he’s spent the better part of a decade accusing Democrats and his opponents of “voting fraud” and “stealing elections.”
But at American Airlines Arena in Dallas during his speech on Thursday, Trump did exactly that.
Trump urged thousands of Republicans to “raise your right hand” and pledge to vote on Nov. 3 whether they are “registered or not.”
“Raise your right hand. I pledge,” the president extolled as the crowd followed along, “the greatest president in the history of the United States, that loves us so much he can’t even breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends, I’ll do it anyway, Trump urged.
“I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m going to try and cheat like hell like they do,” Trump shouted at the crowd.
“There’s never been bigger cheaters,” he screamed.
Critics quickly pounced on him, not only for asking voters to “cheat like hell,” but for urging them to pledge allegiance to him and not the U.S. Constitution, before stunningly telling them that those who don’t vote will “go to hell.”
His archrival, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, called him out on it.
“Donald Trump just replaced the Pledge of Allegiance with a pledge of allegiance to himself. This November, the choice is yours on the ballot: America or Trump.”
Journalist Brad Polumbo agreed, writing on X, “Good god, this is so strange and embarrassing.”
Another reporter, Nikki Barnes, described Trump’s astounding pledge with three words: “It’s a cult.”
Social media followed suit.
“What in the…?” an X user wondered.
Another chimed in, “Oops. He said the ‘cheating’ part out loud. And people are just mindlessly clapping and cheering along in that room like a bunch of cult members. The US is such a disgrace right now.”
Trump is becoming increasingly more desperate to hold onto his majority in Congress as polls show a potential blue wave and a red bloodbath in November while his approval rating continues to plummet in the polls.
Trump has been trying almost since the day he retook the White House to make it harder for Americans to vote. He has also continued pushing his false claims that Democrats “stole” the 2020 presidential election from him and that “fraud” plagues the American voting system.
Courts have thrown out some gerrymandered GOP voting maps, something Trump encouraged red states to do almost since his second term began in January of 2025. Trump apparently is hoping Republicans can hold on to their razor-thin majority in the House through gerrymandered voting maps.
An appeals court also allowed a block on his executive order to limit mail-in voting to stand in a decision Thursday. The same case is also before the Supreme Court. Some states are already sending midterm mail-in ballots.
The order by a district court judge blocking Trump’s executive action prevents the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out his plan. The president’s directive included not delivering ballots in states that had not received federal approval for their envelope design, according to The Associated Press, and those that had not handed over voter rolls.
Courts have repeatedly blocked Trump’s efforts to obtain voter rolls from Democratic-led states. Republican-controlled states have mostly handed them over. The U.S. Constitution expressly leaves voting administration to the states. The federal government has no part in it.
Trump has also pushed hard for the SAVE America Act. The measure would make it harder to vote by requiring proof of citizenship to register, limiting mail-in ballots, and requiring voter identification at the polls.
The House has already passed its version of the bill, but opposition from Democrats and some Republicans has stalled it in the Senate.
