Trump Draws Plenty of Supporters And More Than A Few Detractors To Nashville Speech

Suzanne Ford hadn’t planned to see Donald Trump speak this weekend. But when the Springfield, Illinois, woman heard the Republican frontrunner would be in Nashville at the same time she was visiting relatives, she couldn’t pass up the chance.

“Nothing’s getting done,” she said. “I think that’s what the draw with Donald Trump is.”

Ford was among the 1,000 or so people who came from across the country this weekend for Trump’s appearance before a tea party group in downtown Nashville.

To his supporters, the attraction was as much Trump’s style as the substance of his message.

“He’s not going to have any outside influences,” Ford added, “and somebody needs to get something done in this country.”

Trump arrived an hour early for his speech to the National Federation of Republican Assemblies. But there was already an eager crowd waiting outside Rocketown
in SoBro
 when he pulled up in a black SUV.

They showered the real estate tycoon and reality TV star with chants of “Trump! Trump!” He
signed autographs as his security detail muscled him through the throng.

“Let’s go inside and have some fun,” Trump suggested.

Beside him, a tall man in a white T-shirt shouted above the crowd.

“I’ll be the first person to volunteer one week of my work, if you become president, to help build that wall. And anybody else here…”

The rest of Chris Younes’s offer was drowned out by cheers. Younes is a truck driver from Murfreesboro. He says he could
 put his skills to work along the Mexican border, where Trump has suggested a fence to keep people from crossing.

Supporters weren’t the only ones to turn out for Trump’s appearance. About 200 pro-immigration rights protesters came as well. 
They hoped to show his brash rhetoric is earning him enemies as well as fans.

Among them was 
Mario Vargas, a business analyst from Mexico. Holding a battered American passport at his side, Vargas said Trump needs to know that many of those immigrants are voters.

“I am legal. I have citizenship. I am American,” he said. “So I want to send a message to Senor Mister Trump and the Republican Party, that we will remember you.”