The Trump campaign battle bus came to Reno on Sunday. Aboard it were some nationally known Trump heavyweights.
It pulled into the Nevada Republican Party headquarters office at Fourth Street and Keystone carrying former Nevada Attorney General and Co-Chair for the Nevada Trump campaign Adam Laxalt (R), American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp, former Acting Director of U.S. National Intelligence Richard Grenell, Latinos for Trump Advisory member Jesus Marquez and Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald.
Also in attendance were several Reno and Washoe County political candidates who are standing for re-election and election, including Assembly member Lisa Krasner (R), former Assembly member Jill Dickman (R), who is running to represent Assembly District 31; and Nevada State Republican Party Secretary Barb Hawn (R) a candidate for Assembly District 27.
Sunday’s event featured the speakers meeting the party faithful, who arrived at the office before noon. The event began with statements from Nevada Trump Campaign Director Joe Weaver and Chairman McDonald, who spoke with enthusiasm for the Trump campaign, saying, “I am proud we are going to return Donald J. Trump back to the White House.”
An invocation was followed by the pledge of allegiance led by Krasner. Estimates from the campaign state that about 100 were in attendance.
The featured speakers, from Marquez to Schlapp to Laxalt (who braved a downpour during his speech) and eventually ending with Grenell, made the case for the re-election of Donald Trump and why supporters need to go out and knock on doors and support the president’s re-election bid.
Laxalt vehemently decried the recent mail-in-voting legislation passed by the Nevada Legislature in the 32nd special session.
“What did they do a few weeks ago? In the middle of the night, Friday night through Sunday. They radically transformed our elections,” he said, to which the crowd booed. “In fact, less than 90 days out, less than 90 days out. They had to go into special session to save our system, does anyone believe that? So this is something we need to continue to push back on, something the campaign’s fighting on. We’ve sued…More is to come. There is a lot more that is wrong with this bill.”
In interviews with all speakers on the battle bus, the case for a Trump victory was pressed home even further on several topics.
Laxalt said, “We are here to save the great state of Nevada, and to save our nation–and helping to get people motivated and adding to our team all across our great state, with 85 days to go.”
Schlapp said he’s concerned by Democrats’ efforts to do “everything possible to not have a campaign around this constitutional mandate” of mail-in voting.
“And you have blue state governors trying to do everything they can to almost make it so that the Trump campaign can’t interact with donors unless it’s on a Zoom call,” Schlapp said. “And so I feel like what I’m doing, even people who don’t like my politics, is engaging in a debate on the ideas we have to talk about as a country. How outlandish it is that you have a Democratic ticket…not campaigning, doing one event every three days or so; blaming President Trump for absolutely everything imaginable, including this Chinese Corona flu? Now they’re blaming him for the dysfunction of the Post Office, which has been dysfunctional for my entire lifetime.”
Schlapp said blue states have managed their elections poorly and are trying to blame the president by saying he’s attempting to make it harder for people of color to vote.
“How outrageous a charge is that?” Schlapp asked. “This is the world in which we live in.”
Marquez also spoke about mail-in voting, saying if a person can stand in line at a Walmart, they can stand in line to vote. He said Nevada’s mail-in voting bill is very different from absentee voting.
“They want to send hundreds and thousands of voter ballots out,” he said. “ Yes, they’re just going out to everybody. They’re going out to everybody. That is not the same as an absentee ballot.”
Marquez said the president had “been doing a great job for the last three years before the Chinese virus…
“Of course, Democrats want to keep us shut down,” he said.
He said the Democrats want to keep the economy closed and weak to aid Joe Biden’s election chances.
“But that’s not gonna happen,” Marquez said. “So if you talk about Latinos and people of color, we want to have prosperity–and this president is delivering on that.”
Grenell said Democrats are misconstruing Russian propaganda to be election interference.
“Now, there is absolutely no evidence, no U.S. intelligence that shows that our voting machines were affected or that the election was affected,” he said. “What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to migrate Russian propaganda, designed almost exclusively onto our social media discussions as election interference.
“I wouldn’t say that it’s election interference. I would say it’s our discussion interference. I would say it’s discussions about policy. I don’t know why they immediately jump to scare people that this is election interference.”
Watch a video of the event here: https://www.facebook.com/23802913/videos/10101448757210969/
