Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told a North Las Vegas crowd, composed of primarily Latinos, that he wanted to share a generalization about their community. 

The former president said Latinos have “great ambition, great energy, (and are) very smart.” 

Trump was in town courting Latino voters during a roundtable discussion hosted by the nonprofit Building America’s Future at a manufacturing warehouse. 

He spoke alongside Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown, Goya CEO Robert Unanue, Republican National Convention speaker and Las Vegas resident Linda Fornos, and Nevada Assembly District 41 candidate Rafael Arroyo. The crowd was mostly small business owners and Latino residents.

The appearance came after his November opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, participated in a town hall with undecided Latino voters on Thursday in Las Vegas.

Saturday’s discussion focused on the economy and security at the southern border, with Trump and his supporters’ claiming that both have deteriorated under the leadership of President Joe Biden and Harris. 

Trump also fielded questions from attendees, whose topics ranged from labor unions to “parental rights” in schools, and the economy.

About a quarter of Nevadans surveyed by New York Times/Siena College poll said that economic recovery following the financial and health crisis of COVID pandemic is a top priority. 

The state reported an unemployment rate of 5.5% in August, while the national average was 4.2%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

The focus on immigration remains steady for Trump, who detailed a conversation with Sean O’Brien, the general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters about false claims of immigrants 

“I said (to O’Brien),‘You have to be careful because you have people coming in by the millions and many are not people that are supposed to be in this country,’” Trump said, recalling his conversation. “‘And they’re going to be stealing your jobs, taking your jobs and you’re going to have turmoil.’”

Trump’s claim that undocumented immigrants are “stealing jobs” has been a platform point since his entry into seeking political office in 2016. Much of the Republican nominee’s economic proposals, like his housing policies, revolve around mass deportation — he’s promising to deport 15 million undocumented residents.

Many economic experts disagree with Trump that undocumented immigrants take jobs or housing away from American citizens, including Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. Zandi has worked with both Democrats and Republicans and advised Harris’ housing proposals.

“Most of these immigrants, they’re doubling up, they’re tripling up. They’re really living in cramped situations,” Zandi said, discussing both candidates’ housing plans with the Sun last month. “So, I don’t know that (Trump will) free up much housing stock by doing (mass deportation). The policies he’s put forward are really on the margin in terms of what they might need for housing affordability.”

Small business owners Elizette Zait and Maria Rivas woke up at 4 a.m. to drive from California to Las Vegas to hear Trump speak. Both women said their businesses performed better under his economy. 

“I just feel like we don’t have support from the current presidency as we did when Trump was in office,” Rivas said. “Everything was better, and I hope things are better moving forward if he gets elected.”

Before the event, Zait and Rivas said they were eager to hear Trump speak and field questions from the roundtable, but wished he spent less time attacking Harris.

“I believe that says a lot about your character, the way you talk about others,” Rivas said. “I just hope that he stops bashing her and just focuses on what he needs to do. He has one goal and that’s to win, and hopefully that’s the result for everyone.” 

Trump repeated his claim that it’s unfair for Harris to receive the Democratic nomination because she failed to secure it in the 2020 presidential primary. 

“That’s a threat to democracy,” Trump said. “The biggest threat to democracy is incompetence and we have incompetent people running our country.”

Ahead of the roundtable, the Harris campaign in Nevada held an event denouncing Trump’s visit to the Silver State. 

The event was attended by U.S. Reps. Dina Titus, D-Nev., Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, Ted Pappageorge, the secretary-treasurer of Culinary Workers Union Local 226, and Latino leaders. 

“I want to tell the Latino community specifically; our needs are very different from the needs of the billionaire class. We need access to housing. We need to expand access to health care. We need to grow small businesses,” Escobar said at Friday’s event. “Kamala Harris’ plan for an “opportunity economy” will address these issues, and she recognizes that our communities, the Latino communities, are the backbone of America.”

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