Trump is headliner at the Western Conservative Summit
In his first appearance in Colorado since he launched his campaign for the 2016 presidential election, presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump spoke to several thousand attendees at an event today at the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver.
During the hour-long speech, Trump hit upon the main points of his campaign policies, telling the group of conservatives how he plans to “make America great again.” Local police as well as Secret Service agents were in full force at the venue, and entry and exit to the 2.2 million-square foot building were carefully controlled by security and police. Protesters held anti-Trump signs and yelled from a corner across the street from the facility, but no hecklers entered the event during Trump’s appearance in Denver.
Trump ignored the teleprompters that had been set up and instead spoke informally, sometimes referring to “notes I made on the plane.”
The talk covered many of the candidate’s usual themes, including heaping praise on the NRA, promoting legal immigration while stopping illegal immigration, overturning Obamacare, beating ISIS and defeating other radical Islamic terrorists, doing away with the Trans Pacific Partnership and NAFTA, and he explained how he would use a businessman’s approach in international negotiations. A key point featured by Trump, as well as former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, was stopping government over-regulation in order to promote business rather than stymie growth and eliminate jobs.
The businessman said that as president he would lower the U.S. corporate tax in order to encourage companies to remain in the United States, rather than moving their operations and their cash abroad.
As an example, Trump pointed to the devastation of Michigan’s auto industry with the movement of automobile manufacturing to Mexico and elsewhere. Trump said that under Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democrat candidate, the flight of companies, manufacturing operations, jobs and profits out of the U.S. would accelerate.
A common theme with several speakers was energy independence. Colorado GOP Chairman Steve House, in particular, noted the importance of strengthening domestic energy to give the U.S. a stronger bargaining position in global affairs.
The Western Conservative Summit was sponsored by the Centennial Institute and Colorado Christian University. “The summit is recognized as the national forum for open dialogue that celebrates conservative values, freedom and virtue as the elements most critical to the preservation of the U.S. Constitution and for the United States to thrive,” Centennial Institute Director Jeff Hunt said in a press release.
