A rally was held by Donald Trump in New Orleans Friday night, his third of the day, ahead of Louisiana’s state primary. The rally drew thousands of supporters, and the controversial presidential candidate performed as expected. The surprise was the number and behavior of the protesters at the rally.
Protesters arrived at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport hanger, where the rally was held, hours before the event began. The protesters included New Orleans advocacy groups for minorities and immigrants; protesters also showed support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Most impressively, the protesters included a group calling itself Trumpets Trump Drumpf, a Mardi Gras style second line brass band that aimed to “overpower his hate speech with music of love.”
New Orleans protesters second line outside of Trump Rally at Lakefront Airport pic.twitter.com/ykAirAeSZ6
— wynton yates (@WyntonYates) March 4, 2016
The rally was repeatedly interrupted by protesters causing Trump to be unable to speak for minutes at a time. The event was interrupted several times as Trump directed security to remove protesters. There were a stream of protesters being escorted out during the entire rally, and hundreds more remained stationed outside of the hanger.
Donald Trump seems to enjoy the media attention that protesters bring to his rallies:
“Beautiful weather, some nice protesters, which we all love because it makes life exciting.”
Danny Monteverde, an editor at New Orleans news station WWL-TV, tweeted from the rally this picture of a man who is supposedly a Trump supporter praising him for his refusal to condemn the KKK:
This guy was rushed out of the Trump rally. One supporter kicked him. pic.twitter.com/tu60gn0Zlm
— Danny Monteverde (@DCMonteverde) March 5, 2016
The candidate was also sure to stress the importance of voter turnout. He urged voters to go out and vote at any cost:
“If you feel so sick, the doctor says you won’t make it through the day, you’re going to be dead in four hours, that doesn’t matter. Go out and vote!”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz held a rally in Mandeville, Louisiana on Friday night, for which 2,000 people registered. A poll conducted by the University of New Orleans projected Trump to lead the in the primary, with 38 percent of the votes. Ted Cruz is projected to have 28 percent of the votes, with 20 percent of voters polled undecided.
Bill Clinton also visited the city ahead of the Louisiana primary on March 5 on behalf of Hillary Clinton, but the Trump and Cruz rallies saw a significantly larger turnout than Clinton’s.
Featured Image via Flickr, available under a Creative Commons license.
