The National Rifle Association is formally supporting former President Donald Trump, an endorsement made Saturday in Dallas at the group’s annual convention. Trump used the event to boost enthusiasm among a largely friendly audience to turn out to vote for him, NBC News reports. “Gun owners must vote,” Trump said to politically active gun owners. “We want a landslide.” On Saturday, hours before he took the stage, Trump’s campaign rolled out the “Gun Owners for Trump” coalition, a group of 50 Olympic athletes and gun industry leaders who are endorsing Trump’s campaign. Trump said that if he is re-elected, he will roll back Biden administration executive orders designed to curtail gun violence. He spent much of his speech focused on immigration, crime rates, and baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen.
Trump blasted the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate seen as a potential spoiler for both major political parties in a race expected to be decided by razor-thin margins. Trump said he would use next week’s invitation to headline the Libertarian Party’s national convention to try and secure the voters that could be seen as leaning Kennedy’s way. “Largely they have so much of what we have,” Trump said of libertarians holding policy positions similar to those of Republican base voters. “They get 3% every year no matter who is running.” “We can’t take a chance on Joe Biden winning,” he added. Trump is on trial in New York City several days weekly for business record violations. His part-time campaign is proving effective. He has maintained leads in the key states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Nevada, according to a New York Times/Sienna Poll released last week.