GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump visited Boulder on Thursday as part of a campaign swing through the West, and announced plans to build a wall between Boulder and Longmont. “Every day you have, what, thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Longmonters streaming into Boulder. They’re taking jobs, running drugs, some of them may be rapists. I’m going to stop it on day one” of his presidency, Trump said, speaking in front of a raucous crowd at his newest hotel, the Trump St. Julien. “I’m going to build a wall, and it’s going to be huge. And who’s going to pay for it?” he asked the crowd. “Longmont!” they roared back.
Donald Trump by Matt Johnson (flickr creative commons https://flic.kr/p/CDVn7Z)
Unemployed software engineer Joel Krumpack, attending the rally, said he planned to vote for Trump. “What’s wrong with Boulder is these immigrants come in, they take our jobs,” he said. “I was coding for $100K a year. I got laid off and they hired a guy from Longmont at $75K. That’s just wrong, and Trump will stop that.”
Asked at a post-rally press conference how he would compel Longmont to pay for a wall, Trump cited his business experience. “I’m a negotiator. I’m the best negotiator you’ve ever seen. So I’ll get them to do it. These immigrants [from Longmont], they get paid in Boulder, right? And they send that money back to Longmont. They’ll stop doing that until they pay for the wall” if he is elected, Trump said.
Outside the campaign rally, a small group of Longmont residents demonstrated against Trump, waving signs reading “Trump = Hate” and “Some People in Longmont Are Not Criminals.”
This post originally appeared in the 2016 April Fool’s issue of the Blue Line.
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