Hundreds of rowdy protesters broke through barricades and threw eggs at police Friday outside a hotel where Donald Trump addressed the state’s Republican convention.
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But hundreds of protesters gathered outside the convention were determined to block his entrance when his motorcade arrived at the Hyatt Regency.
Donald Trump has called for unity at California’s Republican Party convention as protesters demonstrated outside. In a surreal scene, news helicopters showed the billionaire businessman and his security detail walking between two concrete freeway barriers before hopping down onto a grass verge and walking across a service road. The crowd began dispersing about three hours after the speech ended. We were walking over and under fences.
“Felt like I was crossing the border”, Trump quipped during his lunchtime speech.
Trump entered the convention from an access point behind the hotel, avoiding protesters. “I wouldn’t say it was even reluctance. He’s for America and business”, said Gilbert, 71, of Woodside. “My feeling about Donald Trump is, I don’t think that that’s our best foot forward at all”.
“I’ve never seen a party attack one of its own candidates with this aggressiveness”, Kelly said of GOP establishment figures who oppose Trump, blaming it on an elitist Washington attitude out of touch with voters.
A New York Times projection says Trump will probably secure as many as 1,289 delegates, including 154 of California’s huge trove of 172.
Trump spoke for about 30 minutes Friday in a basement banquet hall in this town just outside San Francisco airport.
A group of women and one man walked through the scrum topless, wearing pasties that demanded liberation for the very body parts they were barely covering.
Things were tense between Trump supporters and protesters almost a mile from the hotel.
On Thursday afternoon, anti-Trump activists flew a plane over Mountain View, with a banner that read, “Google Don’t Be Evil, #DumpTrump”. He has accused Mexico of sending drug dealers and rapists across the USA border, and has promised to solve the problem by building a wall and forcing Mexico to pay for it. The population of Costa Mesa, where he appeared on Thursday, is about a third Latino.
Brooks said the candidate espouses anti-black, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant views. “Donald Trump is going to be our nominee,”Scott wrote on Facebook this week”.
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, recently announced as Cruz’s running mate, will host a dinner banquet on Saturday night.
When Trump earlier this month said transgender people should be able to use whichever bathroom they choose, Cruz’s campaign released a statement saying Trump was “no different from politically correct leftist elites”.
A supporter cheers during a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Thursday, April 28, 2016, in Costa Mesa, Calif.
Earlier this week, a Trump rally in nearby Anaheim turned contentious when his supporters and protesters clashed, and several people were hit by pepper spray. Police in riot gear and on horseback pushed the crowd back and away from the arena; one Trump supporter had his face bloodied in a scuffle as he tried to drive away. Some 20 people were arrested.
The protesters remained even though Trump had left.
The US Secret Service led Mr Trump in through a rear entrance to the hotel. Trump and Cruz’s events are already sold out.
Trump rarely speaks at state party events, but California is the big prize on June 7, as the primary series wraps up. Ted Cruz hopes to make a play to win the nomination as balloting progresses. “I think so, to be honest with you, because they’re going to be voting for me (not the party)”.
“No hate in our state!” was one of the chants heard outside the hotel. He has won a majority of the delegates allocated so far.
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By around 3 p.m. local time (6 p.m. ET) most of the crowds near the convention had dispersed.
