LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump addressed roughly 7,000 excited supporters at the Venetian hotel on Sunday morning, telling them to respond to Hillary Clinton’s email scandal by at the polls: “The only way to beat the corruption is to show up and vote.”
He joked: “We never thought we were going to say thank you to Anthony Weiner,” referring to the fact that the FBI has re-opened its investigation into Clinton’s illicit email server based on emails found on Weiner’s computer during the course of a separate FBI investigation regarding his alleged online relationship with an underage girl.
Trump hit a number of his current campaign messages, including his promise to repeal Obamacare.
“Obamacare is a catastrophe for your state,” he said. “… Hillary Clinton wants to double down on Obamacare, making it more expensive — in fact, much more expensive. My contract with the American voter includes a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.”
Trump also slammed the Iran deal, inviting the audience to consider the spectacle of $1.7 billion in cash being offloaded from cargo planes. He promised to lower taxes to expand business and jobs; to suspend the Syrian refugee resettlement program; and to build a wall along the border.
But his most strident attacks focused on Clinton’s email scandal. Trump reserved particular attention for Attorney General Loretta Lynch, whom he speculated had been offered re-appointment in a Hillary Clinton administration, in her infamous secret meeting with Bill Clinton before the FBI’s June decision on whether to recommend prosecution.
“What makes us exceptional is that we are a nation of laws, and we are all equal under those laws,” he said, adding later: “We have one ultimate check on Hillary’s corruption, and that is the power of the vote. The only way to beat the corruption is to show up and vote,” he said.
Trump also cited James O’Keefe — “a very talented young man,” he said — and Wikileaks’ exposé of Democrats’ efforts to incite violence at his rallies.
From the stage, he also directed staff to assist a woman who had taken ill, and invited her back when she felt better.
And he held aloft a supporter’s homemade sign that read: “Latinas for Trump.” Then he invited the sign’s owner onstage.
The woman, who said she was originally from Mexico, said that she supported Trump because he supports law and order. “You have to come into this country legally,” she added, to cheers.
One of those supporters, Enrico Jimenez, 26, came dressed in a convict costume, with a Hillary Clinton mask, and posed for pictures with other Trump supporters.
“Like most people, it pisses me off that politicians are corrupt and commit felonies and get away with it, as if they are above the law.
The FBI re-opening the case gives me a little hope. In the words of Hillary Clinton: ‘There should be no bank too big to fail and no individual too big to jail’.”
In front of the media pen, several dozen women faced the television cameras holding “Women for Trump” signs. Laura, from Las Vegas, said, “We’re facing you because we think you ignore us. No matter how many people.” Another chimed in: “We’re alive and well!”
James Barber of Arizona drove up to attend the rally, and said he was confident about Trump’s chances. “I think he will do well, because of the hidden Trump supporters — what I call the ‘hiding’ Trump supporters,” he said.
“I’m a Trump supporter but I will not put a bumper sticker on my car because I’m afraid it will be vandalized.”
He was wearing a Rush Limbaugh T-shirt — “I’m a Hillary deplorable” — and holding a homemade sign that read: “Escapee from the Democrat plantation.”
Barber explained: “I voted for Clinton in 1992. In 1993, he passed a retroactive tax increase that took 75% of my raise that I worked hard to get. I heard Bill Clinton say that he knew better than I did how to spend my money. That’s when I became a Republican, and I have been one for the last 23 years.”
As for those Republicans who felt that Trump did not represent their party, he said: “They would rather have a liberal Supreme Court.”
Another attendee, Yaakov Kalman of Washington, D.C., was highly visible in a bright orange yarmulke and t-shirt.
Asked how he felt about recent charges that Trump — or his supporters — were antisemitic, Kalman said: “The most important issue is support for the security and longevity of Israel. Of the two candidates, he’s best for Israel.
“I think in his heart he is not antisemitic. However, some of the things he says can be misconstrued and misinterpreted.”
Warm-up speaker Wayne Allen Root — who has appeared for Trump at numerous local rallies — led cheers of “Lock her up!”, and touted the news that the FBI would re-open its investigation into Clinton’s emails, calling it “Christmas in October … Merry Christmas, deplorables!”
He joked that Hillary Clinton had been done in by a “leaking Weiner,” and accused the pollsters of “premature prognostication.” The combative Root closed: “We will never accept defeat … I will give you my country when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.”
Another speaker, Danny Tarkanian — son of local basketball legend Jerry Tarkanian, and a candidate for Congress in Nevada’s 3rd congressional district — had a different approach. When the crowd started chanting “Lock her up!”, he responded, to cheers: “I’ve got something better … why don’t we just vote her down?”
Organizers informed fans throughout the rally that there were buses outside the Venetian to take them to the polls for early voting and bring them back.
The Venetian is owned by Sheldon Adelson, a “megadonor” to Republican and pro-Israel causes, as well as a philanthropist who has established a network of addiction clinics with his wife, Miriam.
Trump thanked both of the Adelsons at the start of his speech, to cheers from the audience.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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