Washington DC
CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump was booed loudly throughout his speech at the Libertarian Party National Convention on Saturday, especially when he asked attendees to “nominate me or at least vote for me.”
Heckling began the moment the former president took the stage, with some of his supporters in the audience trying to drown out the boos by chanting “We need Trump!”
“Right now, I think you should nominate me or at least vote for me, and we should win together,” Trump said, “Because libertarians want to vote for me, and this is very important, because we have to get rid of the worst president in history.”
Trump added, “Only do it if you want to win. Don’t do it if you want to lose. Keep winning 3% every four years.” (In 2016, Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson won more than 3% of the popular vote, the highest number in the party’s history.)
Trump walked off the stage after 34 minutes, one of his shortest campaign speeches to date. The Libertarian Party is due to select its presidential candidate on Sunday.
Trump’s stop at the Libertarian Convention was unusual for a leading Republican candidate, but it signaled the Trump campaign’s growing concern about third-party candidates. The outreach to the Libertarian Party comes after Trump has intensified his attacks in recent weeks on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose advisers are increasingly concerned that Kennedy’s high-profile role as an independent contender for the White House could pose a problem in an election that is expected to be decided narrowly in several states.
Kennedy will speak at the convention on Friday, while his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, will attend Trump’s speech and speak on Sunday.
The Washington Hilton Hotel was abuzz at times as Trump supporters and Libertarians clashed, and the chairman of the Libertarian Party instructed supporters of the former president, who were sitting in the front row, to make way for the Libertarian representatives before Trump’s speech.
“I don’t want to fight with people, beg or plead with people. Let’s make room for the delegates. They’re the ones you’re trying to convince, right? You’ve already been convinced. The delegates haven’t been convinced. President Trump is here to convince the delegates,” Angela McArdle said.
“To all you Donald Trump supporters, I think what I want to see tonight is that we can all get along and understand each other and find some ground that we can agree on, even if we don’t agree to vote for the same person,” she added.
Ahead of the speech, Secret Service agents also confiscated rubber chickens that were being handed out to attendees by a super PAC affiliated with the Kennedy campaign.
“No lighters, no water bottles, no noisy chickens,” one agent yelled at attendees waiting to go through security.
Tony Lyons, co-chair of the pro-Kennedy super PAC American Values 2024, confirmed to CNN that the group handed out rubber chickens at Saturday’s convention.
Jose Luis Magana/AP
Attendees heckle Trump as he speaks at the Libertarian Convention on May 25, 2024.
Libertarians in the audience clashed at times with Trump supporters, leading to some being removed from the venue. One libertarian critic of Trump was forced to leave the venue after being seen by CNN punching a Trump supporter. Several people in the front of the venue turned their backs on Trump as he spoke.
One of Trump’s few loudly applauded remarks on Saturday came when he announced that if elected, he would commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, an underground website where people could anonymously buy and sell everything from drugs to hacking tutorials. Ulbricht was convicted in 2015 on seven charges ranging from money laundering to drug trafficking and was serving a life sentence, and many at the Libertarian Convention had called for his pardon.
Trump also drew applause when he said that if he were to win a second term, he would have libertarians in his cabinet and appoint libertarians to senior administration positions.
Ahead of the speech, the Trump campaign was expecting a cold reception from some in attendance. Former Republican presidential candidate and now Trump surrogate Vivek Ramaswami was loudly booed when he mentioned the former president during his convention speech on Friday.
“Do we know this isn’t exactly our home turf? Absolutely. Some people want Trump there, some don’t, but we’re on the offensive and we’re fighting for the non-traditional votes to unite the country,” Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller told CNN.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s campaign team criticized Trump as “anti-liberal” ahead of the speech.
“Donald Trump says the Republican Party is the party of freedom, but try telling that to the women who have had their health care decisions taken away and their pregnancies monitored by the government,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a statement Saturday.
McArdle earlier told CNN that Biden had also been invited to speak at the convention but had not responded.
At a press conference shortly after Trump’s speech, Libertarian Party presidential candidate Chase Oliver said he thought it was a mistake to invite Trump, but was proud of the Libertarian Party for heckling him during his speech.
“I don’t want to have a war criminal on this stage. I don’t think he deserves to be on this stage,” Oliver said. “I think it was a mistake to invite Donald Trump, but I’m glad he got a glimpse of what a true libertarian welcome feels like.”
Michael Recktenwald, the Libertarian Party’s other presidential candidate, said he believed the party had achieved something by inviting Trump to the convention, noting that the former president had promised to commute Ulbricht’s sentence.
“We had a major party candidate say we’re going to release Ross Ulbricht,” Rectenwald said at a news conference. “We’ve made a step toward freedom.”
Still, Recktenwald acknowledged that Trump’s comments are unlikely to persuade libertarians to vote for the former president.
“There is not a single Libertarian in this room who is in danger of being fooled by Trump’s nonsense,” he said.
Trent Nestle, the Libertarian Party representative from Tennessee, told CNN that Trump’s promise to commute Ulbricht’s sentence isn’t enough to persuade people to support him.
“I would love to see that happen,” Nestle said. “It would not change my vote in November.”
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.
