Trump campaigns in Las Vegas, as the heat had little effect on his supporters' enthusiasm.
Trump elected to have supporters spend hours in triple-digit Las Vegas heat, where showing their loyalty to his reelection campaign meant plenty of water, seeking shade ...
lasvegassun.com
Trump speaks for one hour touting reelection bid
Sunday, June 9, 2024 | 2:27 p.m.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump started lining up at Sunset Park in Las Vegas at 9 a.m. today, three hours before Trump would take the stage in a rally touting his presidential campaign.
The scene was familiar to other rallies with loyalists sporting “Make America Great Again” hats and some carrying signs promoting GOP conspiracy theories about past elections.
This rally, though, had one noticeable difference: The heat.
Trump elected to have supporters spend hours in triple-digit Las Vegas heat, where showing their loyalty to his reelection campaign meant plenty of water, seeking shade, and jockeying for a spot under misting devices.
Trump spoke for about one hour, mostly making claims about President Joe Biden’s tenure in office, such as criticizing his handling of the southern border and saying Nevada is becoming a “dumping ground” because of Biden’s immigration policies.
They’ll face each other in a presidential election rematch in November.
“In three and a half years, the people of Nevada have had a front row seat to Joe Biden’s evil and criminal obliteration of our Southern border,” Trump said. “What he signed means nothing, in fact it makes it easier, in my opinion it opens the border even further.”
This was his first rally here since winning the state’s presidential preference primary in February — and the first since he was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in New York by a state jury. Trump dismissed the conviction during his speech as a political tool against him.
Nevada is one of six battleground states that will likely decide the election. Trump appealed to hotel workers and servers, a large voting base in Las Vegas, announcing for the first time that he wouldn’t charge taxes on tips if elected.
“It’s been a point of contention for years and years and years,” Trump said. “You do a great job of service, you take care of people, I think it’s going to be something that’s deserved.”
Trump continuously called Biden incompetent and evil, language he said he wouldn’t have used if he had not been indicted. The felony convictions Trump received were from a state case in New York, not a federal court, but Trump nonetheless said the Department of Justice had been “weaponized” against him.
“When he indicted me over nothing, they opened up a whole new box, and then I got indicted again and again and again,” Trump said.
The former president was in Arizona last week, another battleground state, where 11 people were hospitalized from heat exhaustion during the event. At least two calls for medics was made just past 8:30 a.m. Sunday while supporters waited in line for the event in Nevada to open.
Cloud cover later in the day lowered temperatures as the event started, but several ambulances and medical personnel were on standby in anticipation of the high temperature.
The heat nor the felonies dissuaded Trump’s coalition, as hundreds gathered for the Sunday event. Trump’s proponents have seemingly rallied even stronger to the former president since his conviction.
Jesus Marquez, conservative consultant and former commissioner of Trump’s White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative, said Trump’s convictions resonated favorably among Latino voters, who have seen “political persecution” in Central and South American countries.
“My parents, for example, they saw political persecution in countries like Mexico, Central America, South America, and when they come here and they see, they relate to that, what they’re doing to President Donald Trump,” Marquez said.
Also among the speakers at the event were Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia and Michael McDonald, the Nevada GOP Chairman who said he and others were in Nevada to “worship” Trump.
McDonald’s loyalty to Trump includes participating in a fake elector scheme with hopes of overturning Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. The coordinated effort with Republicans in six other swing states has led to multiple legal charges.
“We will walk through hell to put Donald J. Trump back in the White House, and take back America,” McDonald said.
Steve Grammas, a Metro Police officer and president of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, announced the association’s endorsement for Trump during the event. Grammas cited the former president’s visit to Metro headquarters in the wake of the Oct. 1 shooting as a key moment of his support of police.
Noticeably absent from the event: Republican U.S. Senate primary candidates Sam Brown and Jeff Gunter, who are running a tightly contested race that will pit one of them against Democratic incumbent Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.
Both have sought the former president’s endorsement, with Brown going as far as to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in April in a bid for his support.
While combat veteran Brown is the presumed candidate among Nevada Democrats, much of the crowd at Trump’s rally Sunday showed their support for Gunter, Trump’s former ambassador to Iceland. Gunter is considered to be Brown’s major competition, but the lack of an endorsement from Trump has pit the two against each other much as their mutual Democratic opponent.
The only comment Trump made was implied, saying Nevada “has a good man named Brown” in the state, but did not explicitly refer to Brown or the Senate race.
Trump reiterated his support for those arrested during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S Capitol, calling them “hostages” and applauded their behavior, implying Capitol Police set up the rioters by opening doors into the building.
“There has never been people treated more horrifically than J6 hostages,” Trump said. “They were warriors, but really more than anything else they were victims.”
Meanwhile, in France
