Donald Trump kept slow clapping into the mic during his State of the Union address
It was pretty distracting.
Donald Trump has just made his first State of the Union address – an annual televised speech to a joint session of Congress – but viewers were distracted by the fact that he kept loudly slow clapping directly into his microphone.
He clapped pretty consistently throughout the speech, like when he introduced Preston Sharp, the 12-year-old who took it upon himself to put US flags on soldiers’ graves on Veterans’ Day.
He even did it at the end of the address, which did look a little as though he was clapping himself.
Despite his experience working in television, Trump regularly clapped inches from a hot mic, and it seemed to really annoy people.
This was the most tweeted about State of the Union address ever, garnering about 4.5 million tweets, and several of those were mocking his slow claps.
He did it so often, someone suggested turning the whole thing into a lethal drinking game.
And some viewers complained that it was making the mammoth speech a little painful to sit through.
And he wasn’t the only one clapping – the Republicans were up and down in their seats giving standing ovations throughout the 80-minute speech .
The Democrats sat in relative silence, save for some audible groans after the president mentioned ending “chain migration”, and even laughing when he called his immigration plans a “down-the-middle compromise”.
Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, raised her hands to hush her party’s representatives when he spoke about immigration.
