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Storms grounded his plane, so Trump took the Beast to Oklahoma at nearly 100 mph

Storms Grounded His Plane. Trump Asked How Fast the Beast Goes and Drove to Oklahoma Anyway.

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanOctober 1, 2026 · 4 min read
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Storms grounded President Trump’s aircraft on Thursday, and his team suggested calling off his rally in Durant, Oklahoma. He refused. Instead, the presidential motorcade drove roughly 85 miles north from Denton, Texas, with press vans clocking 98 mph on wet highway, and Trump walked onstage at the Choctaw Event Center nearly two hours late to a crowd that had waited for him.

He told the story himself, and he clearly enjoyed telling it.

“How fast does the Beast travel?”

Trump had spent the afternoon at the Peterbilt Motors plant in Denton, where he talked about jobs, tariffs and tax cuts and urged Texans to support Attorney General Ken Paxton’s U.S. Senate campaign. The plan was to fly from there to Durant Regional Airport. Rain and storms made it impossible for planes or helicopters to land.

Here is how Trump described the moment to the Oklahoma crowd: “This was not an easy trip. We were in Texas trying to get Ken Paxton elected… So I was in Texas. And they said, ‘Sir, I think we’re going to have to cancel Oklahoma. The weather is terrible.’ ‘You can’t take the helicopter, sir. You can’t take the plane.’ I said, ‘What can I take?’ ‘Well, it’s a very long drive.'”

It got better. “I said, ‘How long?’ They said, ‘It could be long, sir.’ I said, ‘How fast does the Beast travel?’ They said, ‘We could go close to 100 miles an hour.’ I said, ‘Get your asses in that car. We’re going to Oklahoma.'”

The room roared. It was, in fairness, a story that only one person alive could tell about himself.

The drive was real

This was not a rally-stage tall tale. Reporters traveling with the president said a press van in the motorcade hit 98 mph on the wet highway. Independent journalist Nick Sortor reported clocking the motorcade at just under 100 mph. Cameras showed the procession heading north on U.S. 75 through Denison, and police and fire crews in Whitesboro helped with traffic control as it passed. No injuries were reported.

Trump kept the crowd posted on Truth Social along the way. He wrote that “There was a major weather delay,” that his aircraft could not land, and that he was driving up from Texas. He told Oklahomans to “stay tuned — I’ll be there soon!” and said the presidential limousine was going faster than it had ever gone before. About 10 minutes out, he posted: “I’m almost there Oklahoma — 10 minutes!”

Durant police put his arrival at 7:09 p.m. He stepped onstage at 7:51 p.m., nearly two hours after his scheduled 6 o’clock appearance, and spoke until about 9:15.

Who was waiting

The Durant Democrat reported a crowd of several thousand, many in red hats and campaign gear, who had stood in line for hours in the rain. They were not there for a coin-flip state. Trump reminded them that he has carried all 77 Oklahoma counties in each of his three campaigns. He even remarked, in the middle of his travel story, that “we do so well in Oklahoma,” and predicted that “the governor’s going to win.”

The rally was one of the first stops in a month-long push before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, and it was built around Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei, who used his time to talk about eliminating the state income tax. Trump’s message was turnout. “Pretend I’m running, please,” he told the crowd. “We do great when I’m on the ballot.” He warned that if Republicans lose control of Congress, Democrats could move to impeach him again.

“Just 33 days from now the people from Oklahoma are going to defeat the radical left Democrats once again,” he said.

Why it lands

Politicians cancel events for weather all the time, and nobody would have blamed a president for scrubbing a stop in a state he has never come close to losing. A safe red state is exactly the kind of place a campaign quietly drops when the schedule gets tight. Trump went anyway, at real inconvenience to himself and to everyone traveling with him, because thousands of people had already been standing in the rain.

That instinct is a large part of why his voters are as loyal as they are. They have watched decades of politicians treat them as an afterthought between fundraisers. This one asked how fast the car could go.

Supporters and critics will argue about plenty in the 33 days before the midterms. But a 98-mph motorcade through a Texas storm, so as not to stand up a crowd in rural Oklahoma, is not the behavior of a man who takes his voters for granted.

The weather said cancel, the schedule said cancel, and Trump said get in the car.

Sources

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