At Las Vegas rally, Trump paints dire picture of America if he's not elected
For more on former President Trump's rally in Las Vegas, click here.
Former President Donald Trump returned to Las Vegas on Friday for his first Nevada rally since an attempt on his life, President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris viewed by more than 67 million people.
Trump is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. at The Expo at World Market Center in Las Vegas. It’s part of a brief campaign trip to the West that included a rally Thursday in Tucson, Arizona. Two more rallies are scheduled next week in Flint, Michigan, and Uniondale, New York.
The 2024 presidential election is Nov. 5 – just 52 days away.
Trump paints dire picture of an America without him in the White House
Former President Donald Trump spoke for almost 90 minutes Friday night in Las Vegas to a crowd of 6,000.
He concluded his remarks with tales of a failing nation where a woman at a grocery store couldn't afford three apples and had to put one back, something he said he’d seen on TV.
“That should never happen in our country, and so we're not going to let it happen in our country while other people get rich,” Trump said.
He then painted a picture of veterans sleeping on the streets outside luxury hotels filled with immigrants in the country illegally.
One of the evening’s bigger cheers came when he vowed to keep men out of women’s sports.
The enthusiastic response perhaps inspired him to recount the blow-by-blow details of a controversial boxing match in the Olympics involving a female Italian boxer who dropped out of a match with another boxer who’d been labeled ineligible to compete as a female by an international boxing association.
Trump repeated his claims that Vice President Kamala Harris is a radical lefist.
“If we're not able to turn this country around, it's going to be Venezuela,” he said. “So get everyone you know to vote. We want a landslide.”
President Trump takes the stage at The Expo in Las Vegas
Donald Trump came out swinging against Kamala Harris, alternately attacking her for speaking in "word salad" and being “a threat to democracy.”
Trump interrupted his remarks to call out “roll the tape” with clips of Harris giving different opinions on guns and Medicare.
He called her farther left than “crazy Bernie Sanders” and then mocked a video of Harris repeatedly saying “Thank you.”
He moved on to replay each part of his debate this week with Harris, criticizing moderators for not fact-checking his opponent.
“Do you see the lies that she was making? Project 2025 -- I've said 100 times, I know nothing about it,” he said. “I had nothing to do with it.”
Trump said he thinks Joe Biden would be a better president than Harris.
“You know that she wanted to have transgender surgery on illegal aliens that came into our country that were in jail,” he said.
Then, he paused like a standup comic and added, “I would say that's quite a liberal thing to do.”
Trump turned over part of his remarks to U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown.
Brown used the moment to say Trump will be the border president and he will be the border senator, before leading the crowd in a fist-shaking chant of fight, fight, fight -- the phrase Trump shouted after the recent attempt on his life.
Trump falsely claimed Harris’ running mate Tim Walz says babies should be executed after birth and that this has happened numerous times in Nevada and many other states.
Killing infants is illegal in all states.
“Nobody wants to talk about it,” Trump insisted, “but they allow execution after birth.”
Trump promised numerous tax cuts at Friday’s rally.
He said that he would institute no tax on tips, an idea he first floated at a rally in Las Vegas in June - and Kamala Harris also supports it.
Trump went further, saying he would end taxes on Social Security benefits.
And, he added, “there will be no taxes on overtime.”
More: Harris repeats claim that Project 2025 is Trump's plan. That's still not right.
Trump running late about 20 minutes so far
Former President Donald Trump is about 20 minutes late at this point from his scheduled starting time of 7 p.m. at his Las Vegas rally Friday.
The crowd is in good spirits, bobbing along to a new soundtrack that differs from previous Trump rallies in Nevada. One song that’s been played a couple of times is the Clash, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?”
Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass“ just started so Trump’s appearance should be getting closer.
Gov. Joe Lombardo had planned to attend Donald Trump’s rally Friday in Las Vegas but had to turn his focus to the Davis Fire near Reno.
Trump rally hits capacity, line waiting to get in
The Las Vegas convention hall where Donald Trump’s rally is being held Friday hit capacity and no more people are being let in.
A line of people stood outside the glass doors at The Expo, hoping for the chance to get in.
A security officer told the Reno Gazette Journal that people were being let in on a one-for-one swap basis: If someone leaves, someone can come in.
One of those making it in after someone left was former Nevada Assemblyman Jim Marchant.
The Trump campaign said it expected 6,000 attendees.
Trump unveils Nevada affordable housing plan at Las Vegas rally
At his Las Vegas rally Friday, former President Donald Trump planned to unveil a new proposal to address affordable housing in Nevada, according to prepared remarks shared with the Reno Gazette Journal.
“As part of our efforts to increase housing affordability, I will work with your great Governor to open up new tracts of federal land for large-scale housing construction,” Trump plans to say, referring to Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.
“Governor Lombardo has sent 3 letters to the Biden-Harris administration asking them to open up some of this land to help alleviate the crisis—but Kamala and Crooked Joe did not even have the decency to reply," the statement says.
“By opening even a small portion of these lands, we will create special new zones with ultra-low taxes and low-regulations to allow the development of extraordinary new housing at a proper price, while also bringing jobs and industries to Nevada – like the movie industry, the technology industry, and massive manufacturing plants from foreign nations.
“If I pull this off with the help of your Governor, a lot of Hollywood will be moving from California, because right now you don’t have the land for the studio lots and everything else.
“Millions of Americans will be able to take part in building these clean, safe, and beautiful new communities – reviving the frontier spirit and the American Dream, right here in the great state of Nevada.”
The Reno Gazette Journal is reaching out to the governor's office for comment.
In June, Trump chose Las Vegas to roll out his idea to end federal taxes on tips.
Senate candidate Sam Brown ‘confident’ Trump will win Nevada
Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Sam Brown posed for photos with supporters outside the Las Vegas convention hall where former President Donald Trump was scheduled to hold a rally Friday.
“I'm confident at the end of the day President Trump is going to win Nevada,” he told gathered news media.
“I'm going to win this Senate race, President Trump will be in the White House as a champion for America, and I’ll be there as a part of a new Republican majority in the Senate to work to the benefit of all Americans.”
The latest polling average from Real Clear Politics shows Brown trailing incumbent Democrat Jacky Rosen by 10.7 points in the U.S. Senate race.
When asked if he will support the results of the presidential election if Trump loses, Brown said, “Whatever happens at the end of the day is something that America will have to accept – but it will be President Trump in the White House.”
What do the latest Nevada polls say about Trump-Harris race?
With Nevada considered one of seven battleground states that could go either way in the presidential race, polls of registered voters have tightened since President Joe Biden dropped out last month.
Biden trailed Trump by 13 points in Nevada polling in July.
The latest average of Nevada polls shows a dead heat between Trump and Harris.
The New York Times shows Trump and Harris tied at 48% each while Real Clear Politics gives Harris a tiny edge of 0.6 percentage points.
The music in the Las Vegas convention hall where Trump is set to speak soon briefly cut out for a video message from Trump urging supporters to vote however they can.
“If we swamp them, they can’t cheat,” he said.
About 6,000 expected at Trump’s Las Vegas rally
The rally is being held in The Expo at World Market Center, a convention center where the two main halls can hold 13,500 people each.
Where Trump will speak, curtains are deployed that make the space smaller. About 6,000 are expected, according to the campaign.
On Aug. 13, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke before about 15,000 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, home of UNLV Rebels basketball.
Loud rock by Guns ’N Roses, The Clash and Boston booms over speakers as people file in, mixed with newer songs such as “Feels” by Katy Perry and "Timber" by Pitbull and Kesha.
‘Trump Girl’ thinks debate with Harris was rigged
Wearing a bedazzled “Trump Girl” ballcap, Nada Gillette took a half-day off work to attend Donald Trump’s Las Vegas rally Friday. This is the first Trump rally she’s attended, but she said she’s watched every single one online.
Gillette was disappointed in Tuesday’s debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on ABC News.
“It’s a shame what they did,” she said, referring to debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis and calling the debate rigged. “What they did basically is bully him. It was three on one, and I think it was unfair.”
She complained that Trump’s comments -- including unfounded claims of immigrants eating pets and Democrats being in favor of "executing" babies after birth -- were fact-checked by moderators four times and Harris none.
“They were trying to get under his skin, and they did,” Gillette said. “That’s one thing I’m disappointed in is that he let them get to him.”
Las Vegas rapper’s songs praise Donald Trump and MAGA
Sean Moon, who raps under the name King Bullethead, blasted his music praising Donald Trump from a pickup truck outside The Expo where the former president was holding a rally.
His song titles include “Too Big to Rig” – “about the big landslide that’s coming,” he said – and “MAGA Drum Roll."
Moon said he was inspired by his grandfather who escaped a North Korean death camp in the 1950s.
“We got free from communism, my whole family,” he said. “President Trump is the bulwark, he’s the one standing up against centralized government, centralized power, like we see in the communist countries.”
In his view, the candidates on the left of the political spectrum represent socialism and communism.
“They represent the slide toward that very dangerous pathway of total censorship, total control by the government,” Moon said. “President Trump is the one standing to stop that and weaken the deep state.”
Rally draws conservative Christian groups from Japan
Yasuyo Urabe came to the United States in July with her conservative Christian church from Fukuoka, Japan, to support Trump.
“We support Trump because we have been fighting against communism a long time and we want to stop the invasion of communism,” she said outside The Expo a few hours before the rally was scheduled to begin.
“We go around the United States to the rallies of Trump,” she said.
So far, she’s been to Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Another group of Japanese Trump supporters had a table with free books making the case that “God chose Trump.”
Book titles included “The Laws of the Messiah” and “Trump Shall Never Die.”
“Under Biden-Harris, ‘Hell on Earth’ expanded,” one of their fliers says.
It says America is in the midst of spiritual warfare, adding, “Did you know that Trump’s past life was George Washington?”
Trump campaign says rally will focus on economy
In a news release announcing the Vegas rally, Trump’s campaign focused on the economy.
“Nevadans cannot afford four more years of dangerously liberal policies from Kamala Harris,” it says.
“Hispanic Americans especially have been hurt hard by the failed Kamalanomics agenda. The economy and shrinking paychecks are the top concerns faced by Hispanic American voters, and President Trump is the only candidate that will defeat inflation and undo the damage caused by Harris' economic nightmare.”
Nevada State Democratic Party Chair Daniele Monroe-Moreno posted to social media, “In Vegas this week, Trump will be just as incoherent, angry, and unhinged as he was on the debate state,” adding, “Nevadans won't stand for it. It's time for a New Way Forward with @KamalaHarris.”
Trump’s last appearance in Nevada came in August at an invitation-only event for about 50 people at a Las Vegas restaurant. It happened soon after independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.
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Mark Robison is the state politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal, with occasional forays into other topics. Email comments to mrobison@rgj.com or comment on Mark’s Greater Reno Facebook page.