Former President Donald J. Trump stood in blazing warmth in a Las Vegas park on Sunday and immediately appealed to working-class voters by promising to get rid of taxes on ideas for hospitality staff.
However past that proposal, little at Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign rally recommended that his new standing as a felon had modified his message. And when Mr. Trump’s teleprompter apparently stopped working, his speech — which his marketing campaign advisers had billed as targeted on problems with native concern to Nevada voters — devolved into acquainted tales and riffs.
“I acquired no teleprompters, and I haven’t from the start,” Mr. Trump mentioned after talking for roughly quarter-hour, although his speech included excerpts from ready remarks that his marketing campaign had offered to reporters. “That most likely means we’ll make a greater speech now.”
Mr. Trump repeatedly voiced his frustration with the dearth of a teleprompter, though he has typically boasted of his capacity to offer lengthy speeches with out one.
His remarks, which lasted roughly an hour, felt unfocused as he cycled by way of well-worn territory, railing towards electrical automobiles, immigration, the 4 legal circumstances introduced towards him and President Biden’s bodily and psychological situation.
As soon as once more, Mr. Trump broadly depicted migrants crossing the border illegally as violent criminals or mentally in poor health folks, after which recited “The Snake,” a standby poem he has used since 2016 to expound on the risk that he believes undocumented immigrants pose to the nation.
He continued to revive his unfounded claims of fraud within the 2020 election. And he baselessly insisted Democrats would attempt to cheat in November, sowing doubt concerning the normal election months earlier than a single vote has been forged.
“Don’t allow them to cheat,” he instructed the gang in Nevada. “You watch that vote and watch all of it the way in which.”
Mr. Trump once more praised the mob of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, calling them “J6 warriors,” suggesting they’d legit causes to attempt to cease Congress from certifying the presidential election and saying that they’d someway been “arrange” that day.
“They have been warriors, however they’re actually, greater than the rest, they’re victims of what occurred,” Mr. Trump mentioned. “All they have been doing have been protesting a rigged election.”
Mr. Trump mentioned subsequent to nothing about his current conviction on 34 felony fees in Manhattan, however he lamented the 4 instances he was indicted final yr as a “shame.” Nonetheless, a lot of folks on the rally wore shirts studying “I’m voting for the convicted felon.”
A lot as he did at a town-hall-style discussion board final week in Phoenix, Mr. Trump spoke at size about immigration, saying that Mr. Biden’s border insurance policies constituted an “all-out battle” on Black and Hispanic Individuals.
Mr. Trump once more criticized Mr. Biden’s current government order meant to discourage unlawful crossings on the U.S. border with Mexico, calling it “weak,” “ineffective” and rubbish, although he used an expletive.
In response, the gang started chanting the expletive, as his supporters did in Arizona when he used the identical description. “This phrase appears to be catching on somewhat bit,” Mr. Trump mentioned approvingly. (When Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, spoke earlier than Mr. Trump took the stage, her remarks prompted three equivalent chants.)
On the rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, the Trump marketing campaign formally introduced its Latino outreach effort, generally known as Latino Individuals for Trump, and a lot of Hispanic Individuals spoke earlier than Mr. Trump did.
Nevada has a big Hispanic inhabitants, and polls present that Mr. Trump’s help among the many state’s working-class and Latino voters is rising. His marketing campaign is making an attempt to capitalize on dissatisfaction amongst these teams with Mr. Biden’s dealing with of the financial system.
Linda Fornos, a Las Vegas resident who got here to the US from Nicaragua, mentioned that she voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 however that she was dissatisfied together with his administration. “For a few years, I believed within the guarantees of the Democrats for extra alternatives for the Latino group,” she mentioned.
Mr. Trump’s pledge to get rid of taxes on ideas for restaurant and hospitality staff was a direct attraction to that group, a big pressure within the Las Vegas space. “Once I get into workplace, we’re going to not cost taxes on ideas,” he mentioned.
After the rally, the Culinary Employees Union, a key a part of the Democratic coalition within the state, attacked Mr. Trump’s proposal as hole.
“Reduction is unquestionably wanted for tip earners, however Nevada staff are sensible sufficient to know the distinction between actual options and wild marketing campaign guarantees from a convicted felon,” Ted Pappageorge, the secretary-treasurer of the union, which has 60,000 members, mentioned in an announcement.
Mr. Trump’s rally in Nevada, a key battleground state, concluded a multiple-day Western swing that began on Thursday with a discussion board in Phoenix hosted by the conservative group Turning Level Motion.
As record-high temperatures hit Phoenix, no less than 11 folks at that indoor occasion have been taken to the hospital to be handled for warmth exhaustion. The Trump marketing campaign took steps to keep away from related points in Las Vegas, the place the warmth was much less extreme however the place the rally was held exterior. A minimum of six folks on Sunday have been taken from the occasion to the hospital, in response to the Clark County Fireplace Division.
After his speech in Phoenix, Mr. Trump attended three fund-raisers in California and one in Las Vegas. Chris LaCivita, one in all Mr. Trump’s two marketing campaign managers, mentioned that the marketing campaign had raised about $27.5 million throughout the 4 occasions, a determine that can’t be independently verified till marketing campaign filings are made public within the coming months.
