Presidential candidate Donald Trump made another visit to Arizona today, stopping in Phoenix to rally up support before the Republican National Convention which will take place in Cleveland, Ohio next month. Trump is the last candidate standing to take the spot as the GOP presidential candidate.
Hundreds gathered in the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum to hear the GOP nominee speak. One of the first guests to kick off the rally was Arizona House Speaker David Gowan, an open supporter of the presumptive nominee.
“We need somebody there, that has been a CEO for many years … who knows how to balance a budget,” Gowan said.
Gowan spoke on issues that he thinks are not only a problem in the U.S., but especially in the Grand Canyon State. One of the main issues the Speaker touched on was immigration at the U.S-Mexico border along Arizona.
“We need to stop this intrusion … they bring the drugs up, they cross the bridge, they cut fences, they murder our officers,” Gowan said. “They drop the drugs off in the north and when they become southbound, they terrorize.”
Not long after Gowan took the stage, Arizona State Treasurer Jeff DeWit took the stage also in support for Trump. He praised the candidate for his tactics as a businessman and believes that the White House should be run like a business.
“As a businessman and the state treasurer, I believe that we cannot rely on the politicians to put us back on the path of prosperity,” DeWit said. “We need a conservative political outsider who understand what it means to build a business, make a payroll and build a wall.”
Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, both of whom have made appearances at Trump’s other Arizona rallies, also made their way to the stage and pushed for better security along the Mexican border.
Trump’s rallies often not only bring the political bandwagon, but quite frequently — including his last two Arizona campaign stops in March — bring with them protesters. Aside from a gathering at a park close to the arena, today’s event brought none.
Bryan Sanders, the protester who was punched in the face at Trump’s Tucson rally earlier this year, was however present at the event.
Even though he is completely against the Republican candidate, he says that he condemns the recent violence that has happened on both sides. Adding that even though he has been met with violence before, he came back this time just hoping to hear more of what the GOP candidate had to say.
“I’m not going to be intimidated out of expressing my political views by a violent act,” Sanders said. “All of us in this country has the opportunity to express ourselves. We have the right to make political statements that we think are appropriate in an appropriate way.”
On the other side, Joanne Selena Lopez-Cervantez, an openly transgender Latina woman and an Arizona Senate candidate running as an Independent, fully supports Trump and his rhetoric.
“He has given us back our voice, I am tired of not being able to say exactly what I think and what I want to say and think because someone will get offended,” Lopez-Cervantez said. “The overzealous sensitivity of the American public has offended me.”
When Trump took the stage inside, the crowd greeted him with a roar of applause and support. His stump speech began with terror in the U.S. and how he wants Americans to react.
“We are having tremendous difficulties, radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump said. “But we are going to settle our problems, we are going to be very, very strong. We are going to be very strong and tough.”
He also addressed last Sunday’s shooting in Orlando that left 49 dead and dozens more injured. The GOP candidate advised the crowd that the attack could had a different turn out if more guns were involved.
“If you had somebody with a gun strapped onto to their head, strapped onto their ankle and you had bullets going in the opposite direction … you would’ve had a very different result, believe me,” he said.
Trump later addressed the refugee situation and said that the U.S. needs to be more wary about who is coming into the country. Trump said that taking in refugees is “going to be a problem that you have never seen before.”
He also gave insight to what his plans are for the Supreme Court and who he would appoint as a Justice. Trump hopes to appoint justices who match his conservative values.
“We are going to put a great, great intellect and conservative people,” Trump said. “Highly accredited and highly, highly respected.”
One of the last issues that Trump tackled was business in the U.S. He promised to make the national economy stronger by bringing jobs back to the states by taxing businesses that outsource to foreign countries.
“We are going to bring back our jobs, we’re not going to let our jobs go,” Trump said. “When you go [to foreign countries] there’s going to be consequences for the companies that go and outsource people.”
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