Man allegedly tried to disarm Metro officer at Trump’s rally in Las Vegas

By Megan Messerly

Published Saturday, June 18, 2016 | 1:54 p.m.

Updated Saturday, June 18, 2016 | 5:51 p.m.

Donald Trump returned to Las Vegas on Saturday for a characteristically boisterous rally on the Strip — this time as the Republican party’s presumptive nominee.

Trump promised to negotiate a better deal in U.S. foreign policy, touted how his economic policies would help blacks and Hispanics, and attacked presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in a speech at the Mystere Theatre at Treasure Island, owned by Trump’s longtime friend Phil Ruffin. It was the first time Trump has spoken in Nevada since he won the state’s Republican caucuses in February.

The rally was mostly peaceful; one person was arrested after allegedly approaching a Metro Police officer under the guise of seeking an autograph, then trying to disarm the officer. The man, later identified as Michael Sandford, 19, since has been handed over to the Secret Service and will face formal charges, according to police. The Secret Service wouldn't answer questions about the arrest Saturday.

Attendees lined up for hours before the event, winding around the edge of the casino floor. Onlookers packed the 1,500-person capacity Mystere Theatre, hundreds more were directed to overflow rooms to watch the speech, and yet more crowded outside the door to the theater, hoping to snag a remaining seat.

“This room is great,” Trump said to Ruffin, who was sitting in the front row flanked by Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton. “We’ve got people in every room he’s got here now.”

Trump pointed to Ruffin and billionaire investor Carl Icahn as “the best negotiators in the world.” He said the U.S. doesn’t negotiate good deals with other countries, comparing them to “grandmaster” chess players and the U.S. to “checker players who don’t know how to play.”

He criticized Clinton for prioritizing relationships with the nation's allies, saying that being too friendly with them gives them no reason to negotiate.

“In a deal, you have to always be prepared to walk,” Trump said.

He lamented the money the U.S. spends on military abroad, specifically in Japan and at the North Korea-South Korea border.

“We have 28,000 soldiers on the line between North and South Korea,” Trump said. “They pay us peanuts. How stupid are we?”

Throughout the speech, Trump took subtle digs at the Republican Party, at one point saying he had raised $12 million to $13 million for the party Friday and Saturday but hadn’t received the same kind of support in return.

“We’re going to beat Hillary,” Trump said. “And it would be helpful if the Republicans could help us a little bit.”

Trump said he hoped the members of the Republican Party would come together — especially to help his growing fundraising operation — but that if they didn’t, he would fund his own campaign.

“If they get a little bit like they don’t want to help out as much, I’ll fund my own campaign. I would love to do that,” Trump said. “But for me, hopefully I can continue to go the way we’re going.”

Trump continued to blame the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando on President Barack Obama and on “radical Islamic terrorism,” not guns.

“If you think Orlando was the end of it with this weak attitude and this pathetic president we have, it wasn’t,” Trump said.

He also took digs at Clinton, criticizing her foreign-policy decisions and saying she doesn’t have the “integrity” to be president. He added that he thought Clinton’s Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders, hadn’t officially ended his campaign because he was waiting on results of the FBI’s ongoing investigation into Clinton.

“Crazy Bernie, he doesn’t give up,” Trump said. “Crazy Bernie, he’s as crazy as a bed bug and doesn’t quit.”

Trump promised that his policies would help black people, at one point linking black youth unemployment and immigration.

“I will do more for African-Americans than Barack Obama has ever, ever done, and believe me, he’s done nothing,” Trump said. “He’s done nothing but talk.”

He said he would do the same for Hispanics, singling out Las Vegas resident and Colombian immigrant Myriam Witcher, whom Trump had pulled up onstage at his October rally in the same theater.

“That’s my relationship with Hispanics,” Trump had said at the time, putting his arm around an excited Witcher.

Trump lavished praise on Witcher on Saturday, thanking her for spreading the word about what he would do to help the Hispanic community.

“She’s been so amazing,” Trump said.

In an interview before the rally, Witcher said there has been “no sleeping at all, just working” for her. She recently wrote a book in both English and Spanish to try to persuade Hispanic voters to support Trump.

“We want the white boy in the White House, but only Donald Trump,” Witcher said.

The pre-rally program featured a number of local Trump supporters, including radio personality Wayne Allyn Root, state Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald, and — a new addition to the Las Vegas program — businessman and congressional candidate Danny Tarkanian.

In a pre-rally speech, Tarkanian stressed the crucial role Nevada will play in deciding who is elected president.

"We can elect a man who will make America great again,” Tarkanian said. “The alternative is someone who will say and do anything just to get elected and who feels she’s entitled to be president because she perceives herself as political royalty."

He also implored crowd members to back the party in Nevada’s congressional and Senate elections, voting for him in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District and electing the district’s current representative, Joe Heck, to the U.S. Senate.

"Donald Trump, Joe Heck and I — we need your help,” Tarkanian said. "Our nation needs your help."

Though Tarkanian and Heck have said they will back Trump as the party’s nominee, Tarkanian has been more vocal in his support, while Heck has tried to distance himself from Trump. Heck did not attend the rally, and other prominent Republican politicians in the state were conspicuously absent as well. That didn’t stop the Nevada State Democratic Party from taking the opportunity to link Heck and Rep. Cresent Hardy, who is running for re-election but also did not attend the rally, to Trump. In a statement, the party called Heck, Hardy and Tarkanian “extreme Nevada Republicans” who have “unequivocally embraced a misogynistic bigot."

Many rally attendees described themselves as diehard Trump supporters, decked out in hats bearing Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan, Trump t-shirts and patriotic garb.

Monica Ursua, a 47-year-old stay-at-home mom from North Las Vegas, said she had supported Trump since Florida Sen. Ted Cruz dropped out of the race in May. She pointed to Trump’s stances on immigration, saying she has many friends who have immigrated to the United States and gone through the green-card process.

“I’m Mexican, but I think they should come here legally and pay their taxes,” said Ursua, who was attending with her husband.

Others weren’t so sold on Trump.

Henderson resident Angie Dalporto, 47, who works in management for a dental company, described him as the “lesser of two evils."

“He can be a little crass. I wish his messages were less aggressive,” Dalporto said. However, she said she will be voting for Trump in November because there is “no way on God’s green earth” she would support Clinton.