READING, Pa. >> Humans do not “control the weather” as Marjorie Taylor Greene believes, but they do control their campaign schedules. So it was a choice that Donald Trump made to be holding a rally here Wednesday night at exactly the moment Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida.

The timing was appropriate, in a sense, for the former president, too, was unleashing a destructive storm — on his supporters. He flooded them with a 13-foot tidal surge of B.S. He recorded wind gusts well over 160 lies per hour. And he rained on them a torrent of gibberish.

He absurdly alleged that after Hurricane Helene, the previous storm, Vice President Kamala Harris “didn’t send anything or anyone at all … as men, women and children drowned,” and he claimed that the Biden administration confiscated relief supplies others tried to send. Trump aide Stephen Miller drew a roar of approval from the crowd when he suggested the reason for this fictitious nonresponse was that FEMA prioritizes “illegal aliens” over U.S. citizens.

Trump falsely claimed that there are “over 13,000 illegal alien convicted murderers roaming free in our country … that were released from jail from all over the world,” particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Illegal immigrants, he said, “have equipment that our military doesn’t have” and are “taking over apartment buildings” in Colorado. He told the audience that if “this crazy, incompetent” Harris wins, “this same group is going to meet in Caracas, Venezuela, because it’ll be much safer than your particular state.”

He proposed the ludicrous idea that public schools are changing children’s genders. “Your child goes to school, and they take your child. It was a ‘he’ and comes back as a ‘she.’ And they do this, and they do it, and often without parental consent.”

The unrelenting downpour of fabrications posed a catastrophic threat to one’s sanity — and yet, Trump’s storm was also completely unorganized.

He invited the state’s Republican Senate nominee, David McCormick, to the stage by saying, “Come here for, like, two seconds, because nobody wants to hear you right now. … But we’ve got to get this guy into office.”

“I’ll be quick,” the candidate assured Trump.

Trump repeated himself often. Around 8 p.m., Trump announced, falsely, that “I’m the only president in 78 years that didn’t start a war.” Twenty-seven minutes later, he repeated himself: “I’m proud to be the first president in decades who started no new wars.” Four minutes elapsed, and he did it again: “I had no wars. I had no anything. We had no terrorists. We had no terror attacks.” (He had all of the above.)

One moment, he was complaining about Whoopi Goldberg: “Her mouth was so foul.” Two minutes later, he was opining: “Women are going to like Trump. I think they like me anyway. I think it’s all bullsh—.” He falsely claimed the mayor of Moscow’s wife paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million, and he called Democrats “cheating dogs” who will try to steal the election.

It was typical of Trump’s recent speeches, which have become darker, less coherent and almost entirely fictitious. Peter Baker and several New York Times colleagues published a computer analysis showing that Trump’s rally speeches have gotten longer and show attributes that “some experts consider a sign of advancing age,” can be an “indicator of cognitive change” and “could reflect what experts call disinhibition.”

Trump rallies used to resemble reunions, where supporters would sport the latest MAGA merchandise in a festive atmosphere. But the messages on the T-shirts in Reading were angry and dark — what might be called assassination-chic:

“You missed, you f*ckers.”

“You missed. Nine lives, baby.”

“You missed — again.”

“If you come for the King, you best not miss.”

Everywhere (including on young children) were “Fight, fight, fight” T-shirts with the image of a bloody Trump raising his fist. Several others featured his mug shot with the “never surrender” message. Newly popular were T-shirts with images of Harris and the words “Say no to the hoe,” and others with a rhyme: “Roses are red/Kamala’s not black/Joe’s got dementia/And Hunter’s on crack.” Others echoed Trump’s victimhood (“I’m voting for the felon,” “I’m voting for the outlaw”), his conspiracy beliefs (“January 6th was an inside job,” “Ready to beat them for a third time”), and his vulgarity (“F— your feelings”).

But I also heard something that made me feel that these Trump supporters were victims of Trump’s storm of deception rather than merely conduits. More than one spoke to me of being confused: Was there really fraud in the Pennsylvania election in 2020? Did FEMA really divert hurricane relief funds to illegal immigrants? Is the country really overrun by crime? As a 61-year-old Reading resident who identified himself as Tommy K. put it, “I don’t know what to believe.”

In a sense, a number of Trump supporters are stranded by his cyclone of disinformation. They recognize that he says some outlandish things. But they have also been convinced not to trust the media — not even Fox News — and so they are getting their “news” from Rumble, Telegram and Facebook. “I’m tired of all the lies. There’s so much disinformation out there,” Janice Aruffo, in Trump T-shirt, sweatshirt and cap, confided. “Everyone has their own truth. You have your truth. I have mine. We all go by our impression of the truth.”