Donald Trump was caught off guard Wednesday when his shout-out to a local Republican congressman wasn’t received well by his rally audience.
After listing supporters of his in the Florida state House, as well as Republican Sen. Rick Scott—all of whom were applauded—Trump mentioned Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), whose last name he mispronounced at first.
“Do you know him?” Trump asked the crowd in Hialeah, which borders the congressman’s district.
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As boos rang out, Trump was perplexed.
“Oh, you don’t like him?” he exclaimed. “What’s going on? Carlos, come on. We gotta get that straightened out.”
It wasn’t immediately clear why the crowd reacted the way it did to Gimenez, who endorsed Trump’s candidacy in April. The congressman was not in attendance, but served as a surrogate for the former president at the GOP primary debate in Miami, according to posts he made on X, formerly Twitter.
“We all know President Trump already WON the debate & these candidates are just vying for cabinet positions,” Gimenez wrote in one post.
As a member of Congress, Gimenez was one of several dozen Republicans who voted against the certification of the 2020 election results. He also did not support impeaching Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
As mayor of Miami-Dade County in 2016, however, Gimenez supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid—an act that some at Trump’s rally Wednesday may have remembered.
