– Donald Trump spent much of the day embroiled in renewed controversy stemming from his long promotion and sudden retreat from birtherism, but there wasn’t any naysaying Friday night at a campaign rally with thousands of adoring supporters.
“We’re going to have a good time tonight,” he promised. “We’re going to have a good time.”
And he delivered, with crowd-pleasing denunciations of Democrat Hillary Clinton, promises to create jobs and repeal Obamacare, and pledges to “stand up” to China and fight Islamic terrorism.
The crowd erupted in boisterous cheering – and perhaps half the audience leaped to its feet — when he promised to “stand with the Cuban people in their fight against communist oppression.”
Trump condemned President Barack Obama’s normalization of relations between the two countries, calling it a “one-sided deal for Cuba and with Cuba, benefits only the Castro regime.”
He said Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba was done by executive order, which he promised to reverse unless Cuba makes concessions on religious and political freedoms and releases political prisoners.
“You’ll be very happy,” he said. “I have so many friends from Cuba. Incredible people.”
Only one thing got the crowd more engaged than Cuba: Trump’s familiar promise to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.
“We will build the wall,” said Trump. “We will build the wall.”
When he asked the crowd who would pay for it, the audience roared: “Mexico!”
Trump also promised to defend the Second Amendment and said Clinton is so opposed to guns that she ought to see how it feels to have her Secret Service bodyguards disarmed. “Take their guns away,” he said. “Let’s see what happens to her. …It would be very dangerous.”
The pro-Clinton super political action committee Correct The Record condemned his remarks. “Tonight, Donald Trump once again alluded to violence against Hillary Clinton,” Elizabeth Shappell, the group’s communications director, said in a statement. “This is a truly deplorable comment that betrays our nation’s most fundamental democratic values.”
Despite the comments about what would happen if her bodyguards were unarmed, the change in Trump’s approach in recent weeks was evident Friday night.
His speech, at about 45 minutes, was shorter than at some previous rallies. He had a teleprompter, and he was less prone to wander on rhetorical tangents. He didn’t attack the news media and push the crowd to boo reporters. And he acted like every big-time politician by emphasizing some local issues: Cuba and condemning the socialist government of Venezuela.
On his way to the James L. Knight Center, Trump stopped in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, where he was received by about 100 community leaders, said Palm Beach County Republican Chairman Michael Barnett, who organized the event. Trump spoke for about 10 minutes, and emphasized school choice, Barnett said.
Trump told the Knight Center audience that the people he met in Little Haiti — “unbelievable people” — want solutions that improve their lives, not more failed policies from “failed and totally discredited politicians like crooked Hillary Clinton.”
Trump criticized Clinton for her supporters’ accusations of racism aimed at him. “They talk all the time about racists, racists,” he said. “When they’re in trouble, they always pull out the racist word. And they’re in very big trouble.”
Much of the political conversation Friday concerned birtherism, the notion — promoted for years by Trump — that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States. He acknowledged Friday that Obama was born in the U.S. — then claimed the birther movement was started by Clinton. Multiple fact checkers reported there is no evidence to support that claim.
Many African-American Democrats view the so-called birther movement as an attempt to delegitimize the nation’s first black president. Thursday night, Clinton accused Trump of “bigotry” in a speech.
Trump said he would get support from black voters because conditions in African-American communities are so bad. “We have cities that are far more dangerous than Afghanistan. Inner cities. African-American people in that community and outside that community are going to be voting for Donald Trump in record numbers.”
Trump touted his improvement in public opinion polls and scoffed at the Clinton campaign, which he said has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on TV ads and is roughly even with him. “There’s no way she can beat us because her people have no enthusiasm whatsoever. They’re not going to turn out.”
Trump wasn’t the only controversial figure with outspoken political views in Miami on Friday evening. A mile-long swath of downtown was a mix of conflicting cultures and styles: Trump’s rally at the James L. Knight Center starting at 6 p.m., pop singer Meghan Trainor at the Bayfront Park Amphitheater at 7, and rapper Kanye West with a show starting at 8 p.m. at the American Airlines Arena.
Trump touted the size of his crowds Friday. “We have such big crowds like this one,” he said, complaining that it was hot in the Knight Center theater. “These rooms weren’t designed for this many people.”
A few thousand people attended the Trump rally, but it wasn’t as large as some of his mega rallies. Normally configured, the Knight Center theater holds 4,569; a large section of seats was curtained off.
Many in the crowd, several warmup speakers and Trump himself attempted to turn week-old Clinton criticism into a badge of honor. Clinton said half of Trump’s supporters were in a “basket of deplorables.” She said they were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, delivering a warmup speech, said “I like being in that basket. I mean, we’re the forgotten people. We’re the people they don’t care about. We’re the outsiders. They’re the ones that will have all the power in Washington.” Giuliani is a prominent lawyer inside the political system.
Kevin Rebal of Pompano Beach came to the rally with a sign declaring: “Deplorable not deportable. Born here. Build the wall.”
The biggest claim to the “deplorable” name came from the candidate himself, who entered the Knight Center to the tune of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from the musical “Les Miserables.” A screen at the back of the stage featured a French Revolution scene, but with Trump posters replacing the French flags. Above it, in the same type as “Les Miserables” is written on Broadway posters, were the words “Les Deplorables.”
From the stage and in the audience, there was widespread condemnation of Clinton.
When the crowd started chanting, “Lock her up,” Sharon Day of Fort Lauderdale, the co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said: “That would be a good start.” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Clinton “lies with incredible skill and grace…and she lies over and over and over again.”
Rebal, the proprietor of a Pompano Beach auto repair shop, said he has no doubt Trump will transform America for the better. “I just agree with everything he says,” he said. “Trump’s going to bring jobs back to this country. The economy’s going to get better. People are going to visit more and spend more money here, and I’m going to make more money in the long run.”
Danny Clanton of Weston said a Trump presidency means “the power can come back to the people. I know he’s a multibillionaire, but he has us, the people, our interests, close to his heart.”
Public opinion polls show an exceedingly tight race. The latest RealClearPolitics average of national polls has Clinton ahead of Trump by just 1.5 percentage points. In Florida, it’s even closer, with Trump ahead by 0.7 points. Clanton said the race isn’t that close. “It’s going to be a landslide.”
aman@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4550
