Trump, booed insistently in his speech at the Libertarian Party convention

Donald Trump is used to being cheered, to people lining up for his rallies, and to people bowing to him. This Saturday, however, he encountered a hostile, or at least divided, audience at the Hilton Washington hotel in the US capital, where he was invited to give a speech. Trump is criticized for the lockdowns and widespread vaccination during the pandemic, the runaway debt of his administration and other measures. He has been repeatedly booed by attendees at a convention held under the slogan “Become ungovernable.”

The Libertarian Party convention will elect its own candidate for the November 5 presidential election this Sunday. It is peculiar that he has had two rival candidates as guests to give speeches. Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known for his position against vaccines, took advantage of his intervention on Friday to criticize Trump’s policy during the pandemic. Kennedy Jr had challenged the former president to a debate during said convention that ultimately did not take place. This Saturday it was Trump’s turn. Never before had the leader of one of the major parties, and also a former president, attended a convention of a rival party.

Trump was already received on stage with divided opinions. Some of the attendees wore caps and t-shirts with his name or slogans, but many others booed from the beginning of his speech. The former president was received with the same music with which he usually begins his rallies and with which his followers usually cheer him on. This time, however, he put on a poker face and tried to force a smile amidst the shouts against him. The tension was so great that some came to blows. A person holding a sign that read “No to dictator wannabes!” She was taken out of the room by security services.

“Many people wonder why I come to speak at the libertarian convention and it’s an interesting question, right? But we’re going to have a lot of fun. Last year I have been charged 91 times by Joe Biden’s Government. If before I was not a libertarian, now I am,” he began his intervention, to which the volume of the boos increased.

Visibly uncomfortable at times, he charged against the current president, Joe Biden, hoping to find common ground with the audience. Trump, who has even said that if he returns to the White House he will be a dictator on day one and has filled his campaign with authoritarian messages, called Biden a “corrupt and incompetent tyrant” and “worst president in the history of the United States.” which caused some attendees to shout back: “That’s you.” In fact, it is, according to a survey of historians.

When his followers supported him with chants (“We want Trump”), the libertarians prevailed with one of their slogans: “End the Fed.” Abolishing the Federal Reserve is part of their program, opposed to state intervention, bureaucracy, regulations, taxes and high public spending.

“The fact is that we should not be fighting among ourselves. If Joe Biden wins again, there will be no more freedom for anyone in our country. Join us in an alliance, we ask libertarians. We must work together. Combine with us. You have to combine with us,” Trump said. “I ask for the nomination of the Libertarian party, or at least many of your votes,” he continued, to which he was again responded to with a mixture of boos and shouts of support. Annoyed with the hostile reaction on the part of the audience, he replied: “Only do it if you want to win. If you want to lose, don’t do it. Keep getting your 3% every four years.”

Trump leads the polls for the presidential elections on November 5, but the battle is so close in the decisive states that the role of candidates and minority parties could end up being decisive, depending on which candidate has the most votes left. Opinion polls show that both Biden and Trump are rejected by a majority of Americans.

The Libertarian Party was the third most voted in the 2020 presidential elections, with Jo Jorgensen as a candidate. He achieved 1,865,000 votes, 1.18%. In 2016, with Gary Johnson as a candidate, he obtained 3.27% of the vote, with almost 4.5 million votes.

Many attendees carried signs calling for the freedom of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the drug-selling website Silk Road. Trump received loud applause when he promised to commute the life sentence to which he is sentenced on the first day of his hypothetical new term and release him, completing the sentence with the 11 years spent in prison. He also insisted on the message that he will release those convicted by the courts for the violent assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, whom he again referred to as “hostages.”

The former president also tried to win over the audience by promising to include a libertarian in his Cabinet and others in prominent positions in the Administration, although in this case many of those present whistled in disbelief. And he also seemed to take aim at some conspiracy theories popular among libertarians.

After saying that if he loses the elections there will be a third world war and after about 35 minutes of speech, read more quickly than usual, he left with the same mixture of boos and applause that accompanied him since his arrival.

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