On Friday, former President Donald Trump spoke at a rally in Las Vegas, and said some things ranging from bizaare to terrifying, not the least of which was his assertion that he regrets not “taking over” Democrat-run cities and pledging that he would do so “next time.”

via Twitter

Trump told the crowd:

“One regret I have as President is that I let Democrats that should be running their cities do their job on crime…instead of saying ‘I’m going to do your job for you,’ because we could have stopped crime very easily by being very tough and very smart. I wouldn’t do that a second time…and I will tell you…because we’re not going to let that happen to our cities.”

Trump was speaking to around 3,000 people, many clad in MAGA and other pro-Trump hats and shirts, at a campaign stop last Friday supporting Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who is the GOP nominee for governor, as well as Adam Laxalt, the former Nevada attorney general who is running for a U.S. Senate seat.

Trump claimed that crime was “scourging” the country, and called the western state a “cesspool of crime,” urging that Democrats can’t do anything to make it better:

“If you want to end the killing, if you want to crack down on criminals and thugs laying waste to our communities, then this November you need to vote the Democrat socialists out of office.”

“Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Trump asked people to vote for Laxalt and Lombardo and other “America First” candidates. He had endorsed Laxalt, who was his Nevada campaign co-chair in the  2020 presidential run, early in his campaign and then endorsed Lombardo a couple of months before the April Republican primary in Nevada.

Nevada Democrats, many of whom were protesting across the street from Trump’s speech, countered the crime rhetoric.

Nevada Democratic Victory spokesperson Mallory Payne issued a statement:

“After spending the last year trying to cover up his record of corruption while letting crime spiral out of control in Clark County, Joe Lombardo is now desperately counting on Donald Trump to help his struggling campaign.”

“Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Incumbent Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak also weighed in:

“I think that Donald Trump and Joe Lombardo are out of touch with what’s going on in the state of Nevada, clearly. But he’s tied himself to the MAGA movement and you know some of the extreme policies of the Trump administration.”

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Christopher Powell