Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in North Carolina. The fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter has become a fixture in his 2024 campaign speeches. Photo / Getty Images
Hannibal Lecter is a cannibalistic serial killer, a lover of fava beans and a nice chianti, fictional – and now, a regular feature in Donald Trump’s speeches.
As the Republican presidential nominee riffed on immigration and the border at an August 3 rally in Atlanta, he declared: “They hate when I use Dr Hannibal Lecter. The late, great Hannibal Lecter,” an apparent reference to the media.
During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last month, he asked: “Has anyone seen The Silence of the Lambs? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’d love to have you for dinner. That’s insane asylums. They’re emptying out their insane asylums.”
In Wildwood, New Jersey, on May 11, he told the crowd: “The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’s a wonderful man. … Remember the last scene?” Trump went on to say: “We have people that are being released into our country that we don’t want in our country.”
Trump’s references to Lecter are at once consistent and nonsensical. He typically mentions the fictional serial killer in the context of immigration, claiming without evidence that migrants are coming in from insane asylums and mental institutions and often using dehumanising language.
Around 1% of those arrested at the southern border have criminal convictions, federal data shows. There is little evidence that undocumented immigrants commit more crime than US citizens do. Many migrants who cross the US border seek political asylum here, but that term has nothing to do with mental illness. Trump has also spoken about Lecter before reading The Snake, a poem that he has used to convey an anti-immigrant message at his rallies and public events for years.
Yet the references to Lecter reveal something else about Trump: the era in which he rose to fame and his previous time as a celebrity. A Trump rally is a sort of time capsule, a frozen-in-amber moment from an earlier era – the 1980s – when Trump ruled the New York City clubs and tabloids and first graced the cover of Time magazine.
His self-curated rally playlists include hits like Y.M.C.A. (1978) and Gloria (1982). The fit of his suits and the length of his ties scream 1980s. He still has a penchant for gilded interior design. Trump Tower was completed in 1983.
Trump is the “crypt keeper for the 1980s,” which was “the high point of his life until he became president,” said Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer who has criticised the former president.
“Every time he opens the door, people spill out from the 1980s, whether it’s Roger Stone or Rudy Giuliani, fashion from the ‘80s spills out, whether it’s his monochrome tie or suits that invariably are made in two or three different colours … his office decor is still in the 1980s,” he said. “None of his tastes have been updated in decades.”
Trump’s Hannibal Lecter obsession fits perfectly in this mould. Thomas Harris’s novel The Silence of the Lambs, which the film is based on, hit bookstore shelves around the same time as Trump’s 1987 book, Trump: The Art of the Deal. (The New York Times had the two books side by side on its paperback bestseller list in mid-1989.) The movie, which starred Jodie Foster as FBI cadet Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, came out in 1991 and became the first and only horror film to win the Academy Award for best picture.
A decade later, Trump attended the 2001 New York premiere of Hannibal, the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs. He arrived at the premiere with future wife Melania Trump, then Melania Knauss, according to a USA Today story. The story noted that the movie studio at the time was concerned about how women would react to the gore. Melania said she had “no problems” and didn’t close her eyes. Trump replied: “I did.”
Trump began working The Silence of the Lambs into speeches in March 2023. He mentioned the movie in an address at the Conservative Political Action Conference then, according to a Washington Post analysis of his speeches this cycle. Lecter himself did not make an appearance until an October rally in Waterloo, Iowa. In 70 speeches tracked by The Post between his campaign kickoff in November 2022 and August 12, Trump has mentioned Lecter or the film The Silence of the Lambs in 20 of them. (Trump appeared to recognise the references to Lecter may be outdated, musing at a rally in Sioux City that “young people” hadn’t heard of him.)
The Lecter mentions are a way for Trump to continue “upping the ante” from his previous descriptions of migrants, said Gwenda Blair, another Trump biographer. It’s “not just criminals, rapists, which Trump has already used starting in 2015 … but let’s get cannibal in the mix”.
Trump “is somebody who understands images and branding, and Hannibal Lecter is a well-established brand of absolutely indescribable horror,” Blair added.
Representative Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who is running for Senate, thinks there’s a simple explanation. “It was a great movie,” Banks said. “Widely recognized as one of the best movies of all time. And I think he enjoys that liberals get bent out of shape about it.”
Several people close to the Trump campaign said they did not know the backstory for Trump’s fixation on Lecter and had never asked. His speeches also seem to have perplexed Hopkins, the Welsh actor who won an Oscar for playing Lecter. In an interview with Deadline, Hopkins observed: “Hannibal, that’s a long time ago, that movie. God, that was over 30 years ago. I’m shocked and appalled what you’ve told me about Trump.”
In interviews at Trump’s rally in Atlanta, voters offered different interpretations.
“First time I heard it, I was like, ‘What?’ But after I heard it a couple of times, it was like, ‘Oh I get the connection now,’” said Jim Scandle, 72. “He’s trying to make the point that a lot of these people that are coming illegally in this country are from mental institutions, just like Hannibal Lecter. And so you know, it has nothing to do with Hannibal Lecter except the fact that he was in a mental institution.”
Bert Sandler, 66, laughed when asked about “The Silence of the Lambs”. (Sandler hasn’t seen the movie in “probably” six years but exclaimed, “With fava beans!” as he reflected on Trump’s comments.)
He had a more philosophical interpretation.
“I think he’s just speaking about where the world is today,” Sandler said. “I think that’s where we are, the divisiveness, I think he’s just trying to portray a character that’s pretty divisive and needed a lot of help, and I think America needs a lot of help.”
Debbie Courtney offered a shorter take: “I just think evil.” She added: “I don’t think he’s talking about somebody eating somebody for dinner.”
The Trump campaign did not offer further clarification about the former president’s penchant for mentioning Lecter or volunteer his personal positions on fava beans and chianti. Instead, Steven Cheung replied in a statement: “President Trump is an inspiring and gifted storyteller and referencing pop culture is one of many reasons why he can successfully connect with the audience and voters. Whereas, [Vice President Kamala Harris] is as relatable as a worn-out couch.”
Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.
The report verified 41,370 grave violations, the highest since monitoring began.