Former President Trump fired up supporters at the National Rifle Association’s Annual Meeting in Texas on Saturday, calling for President Biden to take a ‘drug test,’ putting ‘radical’ Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on blast and encouraging gun enthusiasts to get out and vote.
The crowd at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas roared as Trump received the NRA’s endorsement before he took the stage.
Trump thanked the ‘great patriots’ for the endorsements, but reprimanded the ‘rebellious bunch’ for not voting.
‘But one thing I’ll say, and I say it as friends, we’ve got to get gun owners to vote because you know what? I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s a form of rebellion because you’re a rebellious people, aren’t you?,’ Trump said. ‘But gun owners don’t vote. What is that all about?’
‘If gun owners would vote, we would swamp them at levels that nobody’s ever seen before,’ he said. ‘So, I think you’re a rebellious bunch. So let’s be rebellious and vote this time.’
‘Radical’ RFK Jr.
Trump turned his attention to Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., telling NRA-supporters to not ‘waste your vote’ and that he is a part of the ‘radical left.’
‘RFK, Jr. — I call him Junior by the way — he’s radical left. Don’t think about it. Don’t waste your vote,’ Trump said. ‘We need a conservative person with common sense. This guy is radical left who destroyed New York.’
‘Actually, he’s a disaster. He reminds you of this fly that’s driving me crazy up here,’ said Trump, who swatted at a fly that flitted around the stage. ‘This fly is brutal. I don’t like flies!’
Trump said that RFK Jr. had ‘no policy for anything.’
‘But RFK Jr. calls you a terrorist group. You know, he calls you a terrorist group,’ Trump said. ‘[You] can’t vote for him. You can’t. You know, somebody said, well, they like his policy on vaccines the other day. He said, no, no, he’ll go for the vaccine. He’s nice. He’s got no policy or anything. He’s radical left. He always has been.’
‘We can’t waste any votes,’ he added. ‘We have to make sure we win.’
‘High as a kite’
The Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee set his sights on President Biden, beginning with the usual jabs at Biden’s cognitive ability, and saying that Biden was as ‘high as a kite’ during his State of the Union address in March.
‘Now, he did that State of the Union the other day. He was high as a kite,’ Trump said. ‘So, I think we should go for drug tests on the debate. Yeah, we’re going to call for drug tests.’
Earlier Saturday, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee announced the creation of a new ‘Gun Owners for Trump’ coalition that includes gun rights activists and individuals in the firearms’ industry.