Former President Donald Trump used much of his Friday night rally in Las Vegas to stoke fears about immigrants, between attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris and attacks on the media for what he said was a rigged prime-time debate.
The Republican presidential candidate has repeatedly claimed that under the Biden-Harris administration, an excessive number of immigrants have poured into the United States, taken American jobs, raped and murdered women and children, undergone sex change surgeries, voted in elections, took over entire apartment buildings to provide shelter for their gangs and “conquered our country.”
“We have thousands and thousands of terrorists coming into our country,” Trump said. He said the immigrants were coming from prisons, jails, mental institutions and psychiatric hospitals in other countries.
“Kamala would be the president of invasion,” Trump said, “and I will be the president who makes this country stronger, better, more beautiful, bigger, more powerful, richer and safer than ever before.”
He promised that if he gets a second term, there will be mass deportations. Parts of the country — including Aurora, Colorado — they need to be “liberated” from the power of immigrant gangs, he said.
The Trump campaign estimated that 6,000 supporters attended the rally at The Expo at the World Market Center in downtown Las Vegas. It was Trump’s first public event in Nevada since Harris succeeded President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate. (Visit to Mexican Restaurant in Las Vegas three weeks ago (it was closed to visitors.)
His speech, which lasted more than an hour, featured repeated anti-immigration rhetoric. At one point, Trump recited “Snake”, a song whose lyrics tell a fable about a gentle woman who helps a half-frozen snake, only to be bitten by the venomous creature. In the lyrics, the woman asks the snake why it bit her since she saved it, and the snake replies, “You knew very well that I was a snake before you took me in!”
Trump turned the song into a warning about immigration, telling the Las Vegas crowd that it “very accurately describes what’s going on in this country.”
“The Snake” was a regular feature of his rallies during his first presidential campaign in 2016.
On video screens flanking the stage, the campaign flashed images linking immigrants to crime. One, titled “Harris’ Human Trafficking Plan,” showed a red carpet leading to open gates at the U.S. border. Another read “Nobody is Safe with Kamala’s Open Borders” and a man with a gun hiding behind a woman in a obscure alley. A third showed a group of tattooed Latinos and said “Your New Apartment Managers If Kamala Is Reelected.”
Trump cited real crimes involving immigrants, including alleged kidnapping in virginia earlier this month. He also referenced Springfield, Ohio — a community that was at the center of attention during a presidential debate earlier this week when Trump falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants were “eating the pets of the people who live there.”
Trump criticized the debate moderators, who fact-checked his facts in real time and pointed out that Springfield city leaders had determined there was no credible claim about immigrants eating pets. (Trump’s response to the fact-check was that he “saw it on TV.”) He also repeated a false claim that had circulated online suggesting that Harris was wearing an earpiece and could receive responses.
At one point, Trump interrupted his speech to show a video clip of Harris laughing gleefully and repeatedly saying “thank you” to a crowd of supporters, calling her behavior “weird.” Before Trump took the stage, video screens at the venue played a screenshot of a 2017 headline in which Harris was named the first Indian American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. (Harris is Black and Indian American.)
Trump brought Sam Brown, a Republican challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, on stage. Trump praised Brown, saying he was committed to being a “border senator” to his “border president.” Brown gave Trump a copy of his memoirs.
Other Trump supporters who spoke at the event included Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald, Clark County Republican Party Chairman Jesse Law, right-wing radio host Wayne Allen Root, “Pawn Stars” star Rick Harrison, UFC fighter and Olympic gold medalist Henry Cejudo and Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic state representative from Hawaii.
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