Trump surprises crowd by mocking people who say ‘woke’ – including his own son who runs businesses off it

Donald Trump surprised a crowd in Iowa by mocking people obsessed with using the Republican buzzword “woke”, insisting that most people cannot even define what it means.

The former president has himself regularly used the phrase to attack opponents, and just last month his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, announced the launch of a “non-woke men’s lifestyle magazine.”

The magazine, which is called Field Ethos, says that it will focus on “a forgotten lifestyle to those who refuse to conform,” with fishing and hunting articles written by “old-school adventurers who make no apologies for who we are.”

Mr Trump’s main rival for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is also obsessed with the term and has said as president he would destroy the “woke mind virus.”

In 2021, Mr DeSantis also signed into law Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” which banned college professors in the state from teaching critical race theory.

“I don’t like the term ‘woke’ because I hear ‘woke woke woke’—it’s just a term they use, half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is,” Mr Trump said at the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale, Iowa, on Thursday.

During the event, Mr Trump attacked trans athletes, a popular right-wing grievance, calling it a “woke” issue before catching himself.

“I guess they define that as ‘woke,’ but that’s all woke. We have to bring common sense back to the country,” he said.