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Trump Energizes Supporters, Blasts Opponents At Oklahoma State Fair Campaign Stop

GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaking to thousands gathered at the Bandshell Stage on the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds on September 25, 2015.
Brian Hardzinski
/
KGOU
GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaking to thousands gathered at the Bandshell Stage on the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds on Friday.

Thousands of supporters streamed to the Oklahoma State Fair on Friday to hear Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump hammer the media, illegal immigrants, Iran and Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

Wearing his signature red baseball cap, Trump told the crowd the United States doesn’t win anymore, but that will change under the Trump administration.

Slideshow: GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Visits The Oklahoma State Fair

“We’re going to start winning so much, that you’re going to get sick and tired of winning,” Trump said. “You’re going to get bored of winning.”

Trump played up his status as an outsider who is funding his own campaign without the assistance of lobbyists or Super PACs.

“We have big difficulties. Our biggest difficulty is our politicians are all talk and no action," Trump said.. "All talk no action. They keep working."

Trump antagonized the media, who he said lies and distorts.

“They are terrible people,” Trump said. “Not all of them, but many of them.”

He took umbrage with recent news stories which claimed only 700 or 800 people showed up to events, and asked the TV cameras at the fairgrounds to turn around and pan across the crowd of Trump supporters.

Declaring that illegal immigration is killing the country, Trump described his plan to build a wall at the Mexican border to stem the tide of undocumented immigrants and drugs.

“We need a border, we need a wall, but I don’t mean a wall where you go to Home Depot and you buy a ladder and you walk across,” Trump said, before gesturing to the Bandshell behind him. “The kind that if you ever do get to the top, you don’t get down.”

He also discussed plans to change birthrate citizenship laws so that children born to foreign parents within the United States will not automatically gain U.S. citizenship. He added that most other countries do not have similar citizenship laws. Mexico, he said, has much tougher citizenship requirements.

“To be a citizen of Mexico is almost impossible. I can’t be a citizen because they don’t like WASP’s. They don’t like White Anglo Saxon Protestants, I think. They don’t want me,” Trump said.

Trump spent several minutes criticizing the Iran nuclear deal, and said he would have required the release of American hostages before negotiations began. He faulted Secretary of State John Kerry for not being tough with Iran.

“This is one of the dumbest contracts I have ever seen of any kind,” Trump said. “This was done by extremely stupid people.”

Marco Rubio was a common target. Trump repeatedly called Rubio a “lightweight,” criticized the Florida Senator for his attendance record, and ridiculed Rubio for trailing in the polls in Florida. Rubio and Trump have been trading jabs following a Fox News interview where Trump struggled with questions about Hezbollah, Hamas and terrorist leaders. Rubio, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been criticizing Trump’s knowledge of foreign affairs.

Trump supporter Tony Timmons from Enid, Oklahoma came to the fair just to see the candidate.

“I would like to see a smaller government, moderated incentives for United States, and definitely border patrol,” Timmons said. “He’s a no-nonsense guy. He says what he’s going to do and then he does it.”

Tammi Babbit, from Oklahoma City, thinks Trump is bold and has business sense.

“I like the fact that he says what he means and he means what he says. He’s forward,” Babbit said.

Protesters of Donald Trump's visit gather at the intersetion of NW 10th Street and May Ave. just to the north of the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds.
Credit Brian Hardzinski / KGOU
/
KGOU
Protesters of Donald Trump's visit gather at the intersetion of NW 10th Street and May Ave. just to the north of the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds.

A group of demonstrators lined a section of streets outside the fair to protest Trump’s event. Jessica Vazquez, from Oklahoma City, said their message is that Trump and hate are not welcome in Oklahoma.

“We need him to change his rhetoric and to stop using immigrants and Latinos as a scapegoat for the country’s problems,” Vazquez said. “We know there are problems in the country, but blaming us is not going to solve them. We are not the root of the problem. He probably just needs to do a little more research.”

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Jacob McCleland spent nine years as a reporter and host at public radio station KRCU in Cape Girardeau, Mo. His stories have appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered, Here & Now, Harvest Public Media and PRI’s The World. Jacob has reported on floods, disappearing languages, crop duster pilots, anvil shooters, Manuel Noriega, mule jumps and more.
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