Nevada Republican gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo, center, listens as Former President Donald Trump speaks at the America First rally at Treasure Island Friday, July 8, 2022.
Thursday, July 14, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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Donald Trump must have felt right at home at Treasure Island last Friday. The pirate-themed hotel was a who’s who of fellow bilge rats and rapscallions, just waiting to kiss the golden ring of the former con man-in-chief.
Clark County Sheriff and Republican gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo, who debased himself to get Trump’s endorsement, was glowing as he appeared on stage with a coup-curious — and likely felonious — ex-president. Yes, there he was, Clark County’s chief law enforcement, officer looking up with admiration at an ex-president who dispatched a mob to kill law enforcement officers at the Capitol.
Plus, the event in question was touted as an anti-crime event — Lombardo’s supposed area of expertise. What could go wrong?
Knowing almost nothing about Lombardo or Nevada, and caring less as he lumbered and rambled about, Trump proceeded to go off the rails, as he sooften does. It was a disaster and exactly what Lombardo deserves for his feckless careerism.
Trump told the audience that Nevada — and especially Las Vegas — has become “a cesspool of crime” recently, “filled with the blood of innocent victims.” He went on to say that “If we are going to make America great again, our first task is to make America safe again.”
Setting aside the irony of a man credibly accused of so different crimes over the course of so many decades now trying to feign interest in stopping crime, Trump’s words were far from an endorsement of Lombardo’s leadership. Lombardo has been Clark County’s top cop since 2015, before Trump was even president.
Yet here was Trump, calling out what is plainly visible — that crime, especially property crime, has been a real problem under Lombardo’s tenure.
Adding insult to injury was the fact that Lombardo was there rubbing elbows with political insiders and wealthy donors rather than doing his taxpayer-funded job of trying to… fight crime.
Forget that there was a murder the night before just two miles away from where Lombardo was standing Friday. Or that in the week leading up to the event, there had been multiple homicides, attempted homicides, and hit and runs; a religious hate crime; the sixth officer-involved shooting of 2022; and a rapidly rising property crime rate. Surely, there were more pressing matters for Lombardo to attend to than a private, invitation-only political fundraiser?
But Lombardo doesn’t believe that being present at the job he’s being paid by taxpayers to do is important. He said as much in his prepared statements, arguing that being away from the job for a few days to campaign doesn’t have a significant impact on crime.
If that’s true, if the existence and attendance of the sheriff at the job he’s paid by us to do doesn’t affect crime, why have a sheriff? Is Lombardo just freeloading off the taxpayer dime to support his political ambitions? We hope not.
His argument would be more convincing if Metro’s own data didn’t contradict him and show a nearly 3% increase in crime, including a 30% increase in robberies and 20% increase in home burglaries, compared with the same time last year — which was when Lombardo began campaigning.
Of course, Lombardo has been a walking contradiction ever since he began his pathetic reinvention as a conservative standard bearer.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 1 Route 91 Harvest music festival massacre, Lombardo was an avid supporter of common-sense gun control laws. He opposed an unlimited and unrestricted right for citizens to own firearms and told this very newspaper that “there’s no need to have a high-capacity magazine for any practical reason.” He understood that the Oct. 1 shooter was a law-abiding gun collector … until he wasn’t, and that outlawing high-capacity magazines and assault rifles could have significantly reduced or even prevented the carnage and bloodshed of that night.
The massacre happened on his watch, but we trusted him as a leader to take meaningful action to prevent another massacre from happening in the future. We trusted him to honor the memories of the victims and fight for common-sense gun control. Instead, the crime rate has gone up, and guns are more prevalent than ever.
Today, he has reversed course on every single one of those issues, saying he will oppose any effort to limit the rights of gun owners or gun manufacturers, including supporting magazine drums of 30 or more rounds — the perfect tool for mass murderers. Thus, our sheriff courts the vote of not just gun owners, but mass killers in waiting.
Perhaps he has evolved over time on these issues. It’s possible. But given the corrupt political actors he happily rubs shoulders with today, it seems far more likely that he is simply trying to score political points. In doing so, he dishonors himself and the memories of those victims whose bodies he stood over with Gov. Steve Sisolak on Oct. 2, 2017.
Lombardo should feel ashamed of himself for sharing a stage with a conspiratorial con man like Trump, especially at an event billed as anti-crime. He should feel ashamed for blaming his failures on his political adversaries rather than accepting the same accountability for his actions as he has said criminals must accept. And he should feel ashamed for using the legacy of the Oct. 1 to launch a political career while stomping on the victims’ memories by endorsing the very tools used to kill them.
He should feel shame for all those things and more. But he clearly doesn’t. He’s too busy groveling for endorsements. Too busy attending private, invitation-only performances on fighting crime for a room of scoundrels and cheats. Too busy using his badge as a prop in his campaign for corrupt personal power.
A striking element of Trump’s career in and out of office is his unique ability to locate and gather up an army of the corrupt and insane losers of the world. Lombardo, without his own hint of shame, has enlisted in that army.
