About

Trump Sniffles refers to a series of tweets criticizing Republican Presidential nominees Donald Trump for loudly breathing through his nose during the first presidential debate of the 2016 United States Presidential Election.

Origin

On September 26th, 2016, Trump and Democratic nominees Hillary Clinton met at Hofstra University in New York for the first presidential debate. Early on in the debate, Trump's answers were frequently interrupted by his sniffles.

Spread

Social media users quickly picked up on the frequency of Trump's sniffling, and began making jokes and spreading tongue-in-cheek rumors about his health and/or possible cocaine use in reference to #HackingHillary, a hashtag spread by Trump supporters following Clinton's bout with pneumonia.^[1][2] Trump's sniffles inspired over a dozen parody accounts devoted solely to the sniffling.^[4]

In a tweet, Former Governor of Vermont Howard Dean suggested Trump's frequent sniffing might indicate cocaine use.^[3] The tweet, shown below, gained nearly 25,000 retweets and 37,000 favorites in less than twelve hours.

Late night television hosts also joked that the sniffles were caused by cocaine use, including Stephen Colbert ^[5] and Trevor Noah.^[6]

CNN, CNBC, Bustle,^[8] Reuters,^[9] USA Today,^[10] and more covered the social media reaction to Trump's sniffling.

The following day, Trump denied that he had the sniffles, and blamed the audio of him sniffling on a "terrible" microphone and floated the idea that he was given a terrible microphone on purpose.^[7]

Various Examples

External References