Just days after early voting began and less than two weeks until Election Day, former President Donald Trump made his latest stop to Las Vegas on Thursday night, playing the hits of his standard stump speech — railing against undocumented immigrants, attacking Vice President Kamala Harris as radical and incompetent, bemoaning inflation, exalting tariffs, promising to slash taxes and prices and speaking about the election and his campaign in grandiose terms.
The event, hosted by Turning Point Action, a student-focused conservative group, was geared toward Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) voters — the first Trump event geared toward this bloc in Nevada this cycle.
In the nearly 90-minute, wide-ranging speech at UNLV’s packed Thomas & Mack Center arena (it has a seating capacity of about 19,000), Trump attacked Harris and touted his tax policies. He briefly acknowledged the theme of the evening, saying he would build an economy that works for all Americans, including those of AAPI heritage, and noting he enjoyed the colors of Nevada’s Filipino Americans’ clothing.
“[Filipinos] had the most beautiful clothing,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Where the hell do all these people come from?’ And when they told me, that’s why I put that little paragraph in there … you are the greatest people, hardest working, and we’re gonna take care of you. You’re gonna take care of us! What great spirit.”
AANHPI voters make up about 11 percent of Nevada’s electorate. The fastest-growing demographic group in Nevada, they have traditionally supported Democratic candidates — in 2020, Biden won 64 percent of the Asian American vote to Trump’s 35 percent, per exit polls. But Republicans believe they can make inroads, especially on issues pertaining to the economy and small businesses. In 2022, Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak won the AANHPI vote, but only by 8 percentage points, per exit polls.
Democrats, of course, disagree. The Harris campaign has conducted AANHPI outreach for months, buoyed by key surrogates from the Legislature such as Assemblywoman Erica Mosca (D-Las Vegas), a senior adviser on the campaign. In a statement, Mosca ripped Trump’s presidency.
“As president, Donald Trump oversaw a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes and fanned the flames with extreme rhetoric that put lives in danger and hurt Asian-owned small businesses,” she said.
During the event, Trump repeated the phrase “China virus,” saying it’s what he called COVID-19, while telling attendees that he considered Chinese President Xi Jinping a friend until the pandemic.
“We were actually very close,” Trump said. “But frankly, COVID — or as I call it, the China virus — was a step too far.”
Studies suggest that Trump’s 2020 use of phrases such as “China virus” contributed to that year’s rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and xenophobia.
The Turning Point event included notable Asian American Trump surrogates, including former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who is Indian American, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), a Samoan American.
“There is a very clear choice in this election,” said Gabbard, a former Democratic presidential candidate. “I am doing all that I can to help elect President Trump because there is nothing short of our freedom and our future on the line.”
While the event featured numerous Asian American speakers — many wearing leis — advocates did not make culturally specific pitches to AAPI voters or acknowledge the evening’s theme beyond Gabbard saying hello in multiple Asian languages and Trump suggesting he might wear colorful Filipino clothing into the Oval Office.
He briefly mentioned some Nevada-specific policy ideas, including opening up more federal land for housing and praising Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s leadership on the issue. He also suggested designating zones for large-scale housing construction, in which regulation and taxes are low. And he recognized Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown, who he said had “given up more to run for the United States Senate than any man in the history of” the upper chamber, likely in reference to him almost dying from burns during his military service.
Nevada is squarely among the states whose electoral votes could determine the winner of the presidential race and control of the Senate. So far, Republicans have a steady lead over Democrats in early voting — a fact that Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk touted at the rally.
Here are The Nevada Independent’s main takeaways:
- Trump is enthused by early voting returns
With Republicans holding a turnout lead about a week into Nevada’s early vote period, he mentioned numerous times how well he was doing — though he added that his advisers cautioned him against noting it, lest he depress turnout.
“I’m not supposed to say it, but we are leading by so much,” he said.
He and other speakers encouraged attendees to vote early. Trump gave a lengthy soliloquy about a wife dragging her husband off the couch to go vote for him.
“Get your husband,” Trump said. “‘Hank, get the hell out of the couch, get up, get that big fat ass of yours, we’re gonna go vote for the president. We’re gonna turn our country around, Hank.’”
Six days into early voting, registered Republicans in Nevada have a 4-percentage-point lead over Democrats with returned ballots — a reversal of typical trends, when Democrats usually build up a firewall.
He also made multiple references to the conspiracy that Democrats stole the 2020 election — which has been categorically disproven. He encouraged attendees to turn out and vote for him by such overwhelming numbers that “they won’t think about cheating as much.”
- Trump promises more tax cuts
Throughout the night, Trump reiterated his promise to eliminate taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security — the former which he first suggested in Las Vegas this June.
He attacked Harris for promising to get rid of parts of his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which slashed the corporate income tax, and large chunks of which are set to expire in 2025. Currently, many of the personal and business deductions are set to expire in 2025, while the corporate tax rate cut Republicans passed is permanent unless changed again by Congress. He played several clips of Harris attacking the 2017 tax bill, promising to raise the corporate tax rate and her proposal to tax unrealized capital gains.
Harris has also said she would end taxes on tips and promised to expand the child tax credit and create a tax credit for first-time homebuyers, among other proposals.
He also said that “tariff” was the most beautiful word in the English language, before correcting himself and saying that “love” and “religion” were better.
Trump has pledged a 20 percent across-the-board tariff and a 100 percent tariff on nations that shift away from the U.S. dollar.
- Trump says environment “will be fine” if elected
The former president also brought up an issue that has gotten less attention this election cycle — the environment.
Trump, as is typical, railed against Democrats’ embrace of electric vehicles. He said that while he was not ideologically opposed to them — especially given that Tesla founder Elon Musk is a supporter and has appeared on the campaign trail with him — he also wants gas-powered and hybrid cars.
Though the Biden administration has not proposed a ban on gas-powered vehicles, Trump frequently says that Democrats have. Biden-era regulations have set higher fuel economy targets for vehicles, which Trump has pledged to roll back.
He also noted a break with former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had joined forces with Trump on the campaign trail after dropping out of the race. Trump said that while he liked Kennedy’s views on health care — Kennedy frequently repeats misinformation about vaccines — he does not agree with his environmentalism.
“I don’t know if I can have him working too much on the environment,” Trump said of Kennedy, an environmental lawyer. “I’m a little concerned about that with Bobby. I don’t know if I want him to play around with the liquid gold under our feet.”
He also criticized Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and progressive Democrats’ embrace of the Green New Deal, rejecting her 2019 suggestion that the world had 12 years to reverse the effects of global warming before the planet would be permanently destroyed.
“Don’t worry about the environment,” he said. “It’ll be just fine.”
He reiterated promises to increase American drilling for oil and gas and slash energy bills by 50 percent within a year.
- Immigration
Trump made his usual refrains on immigration, promising to launch a mass deportation campaign and impose the death penalty to immigrants who kill U.S. citizens or law enforcement officers.
But he added a new element to his stump speech: promising to enact the little-known 1798 Alien Enemies Act if elected, which gives the president the authority to relocate, arrest or deport immigrants during wartime.
“We are an occupied country,” Trump said.
Despite the former president’s promise, recent polling indicates that a bipartisan majority of Nevadans favor increasing legal pathways rather than mass deportation as a solution to illegal immigration.
