Trump dad dances at Senate runoff rally to YMCA for first time since his last campaign event

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign anthem made something of a comeback Monday night as he dad danced on stage to the YMCA at the Senate runoff rally in Dalton, Georgia.

The president launched into some awkward shuffling and fist-pumping to the Village People song at the close of the last-ditch rally held to try to drum up support for the two GOP candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. 

The anthem and dance became synonymous with Trump’s rallies in the run-up to the presidential election as he made a tradition of closing out each event with a boogie.

But Monday marked the first time Trump has broken into dance on stage since the last night of his presidential campaign rally on November 2 – hours before Americans went to the polls and voted Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.

Several people took to social media to comment on the return with many quipping that Trump and his supporters must still not know ‘what the song is about’ as it is most well-known as an anthem among the LGBTQ+ community. 

‘Am I the only one enjoying that Trump and his entire audience don’t get the YMCA reference?’ one person mocked. 

‘Apparently no one has yet told Trump supporters what YMCA is about,’ added another.

Another wrote: ‘ever wonder why Trump plays The village people after his speeches. I don’t believe for a second that Donald Trump even knows what the YMCA is. Might be a interesting deep dive.’ 

Others pointed out that the dad dancing at the end of the rally would be the last time Trump would be on stage as president at a rally.  

‘Finally, for history, here’s soon-to-be former President Trump leaving what is likely to be his last campaign rally as President to the sound of “YMCA”,’ one person wrote.  

‘Maybe the YMCA is where Trump will be staying once he leave the White House,’ another person mocked.  

‘Take back the YMCA song from Trump!’ one social media user said. 

In October, during the presidential campaign, the Village People’s lead singer Victor Willis told BBC he had asked Trump to stop playing their music and lawyers for Scorpio Music – which co-owns the copyright – threatened to take legal action against the Trump campaign.

But in November Willis said he would let Trump keep playing the song and a lawsuit wouldn’t be filed.   

Trump’s dance Monday brought an end to the rally where Republicans hoped to win over voters to take to the polls in support of Loeffler and Perdue Tuesday.    

Despite attending to back the candidates in Tuesday’s election, Trump spent much of the rally focusing on his own loss in the White House race.  

‘Hello Georgia. By the way there’s no way we lost Georgia. That was a rigged election. But we’re still fighting it. And you’ll see what’s going to happen. We’ll talk about it,’ Trump claimed. 

He later added: ‘You know I’ve had two elections, I’ve won both of them, it’s amazing. And I actually did much better in the second one.’ 

Three vote counts show Joe Biden won Georgia by more than 12,000 votes. And nationwide, Biden won 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232.  

Trump then demanded Vice President Mike Pence ‘come through for us’ when he is set to announce President-elect Joe Biden the election winner at a Congressional session on January 6.  

‘I hope Mike Pence comes through for us. He’s a great guy,’ Trump said. 

‘Of course if he doesn’t come through I won’t like him quite as much.’   

Also at the event, Loeffler reinforced her claims earlier in the day that she would join 12 other GOP senators in challenging the Electoral College count. 

‘On January 6, I will object to the Electoral College vote,’ she said to the crowd.   

Perdue was absent from the event as he is in quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 through a staffer.   

Trump’s trip to the Peach State came hours after President-elect Joe Biden held a rival campaign event in Atlanta Monday afternoon to try to give a final campaign boost to Democrat candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock. 

Biden told the crowd that a Democratic-controlled Senate would push through changes such as the raising of the COVID stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000 that Senate Republicans have stopped.

‘If you’re like millions of Americans all across this country, you need the money. You need the help and you need it now. Now, look, Georgia, there’s no one in America with more power to make that happen than you,’ the President-elect told the crowd. 

‘The power is literally in your hands. By electing Jon and the reverend, you can break the gridlock that has gripped Washington,’ he added. 

The two Georgia Senate seats are still up for grabs after candidates on neither side of the political line managed to secure the 50 percent threshold to secure a seat on November 3. 

This means that on January 5
, Perdue goes head-to-head with Democrat opponent Jon Ossoff and Loeffler with Democrat Raphael Warnock.

The outcome will ultimately decide which party takes control of the Senate. 

If the two Democrats win, the party will hold a 50-50 split meaning Vice President-elect Kamala Harris then has the deciding vote on matters. 

If one or both of the Republicans win they will take control, likely making it difficult for the Biden administration to pass policies through the Senate.      

Trump has repeatedly undermined the race and at the weekend tweeted that it was ‘illegal’ and ‘unconstitutional’.

But hours later he vowed to attend the event and tweeted urging people to vote. 

His presence at the event was cast in more doubt Monday in the wake of the leak of his phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, appearing to show the president desperately trying to pressure the official to ‘find’ votes to turn the state red.

Raffensperger leaked Saturday’s phone call and the conversation was first released by the Washington Post Sunday.  

‘All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,’ Trump said on the call. 

‘There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated.’

Several officials are calling for criminal action to be taken against the president over the call while Republicans have voiced concerns that his actions may have scuppered his own party’s chances of taking the Senate.  

Democrats reportedly hold an edge in early, in-person voting in the run-off races with Fox News reporting that 2.8 million Georgians have already cast ballots and participation has so far been higher in Democratic Congressional districts.