Jason Burns drove two hours Saturday in hopes of getting his red hat signed by Mike Pence.
As he arrived at The Villages’ Savannah Center a little past noon, the 19-year-old wrapped a blue “Trump: Make America Great Again” banner around his shoulders. Pence’s rally marked Burns’ eighth rally for the Trump campaign but his first for the Indiana governor.
The audience cheered as Burns, a University of Central Florida student, walked with the banner draped from his shoulders and stood in front of Pence’s podium, on which the vice presidential nominee would later discuss immigration, cutting taxes and repealing the Affordable Care Act.
After Pence took the stage to applause from about 800 people, he criticized Hillary Clinton for saying Trump supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables” at a gala Sept. 9.
“Hillary Clinton, they are not a basket of deplorables — they are Americans,” he said. “The other side just has a campaign of insults, they really do.”
Pence told the crowd Trump knows the average American who works with their hands, adding the presidential candidate gets along just as well with the guy laying bricks as the one in the accounting firm.
Electing Clinton would usher in liberal Supreme Court justices and what would essentially be a third term for Obama, he said.
In turn, on his first day in office, Trump would cut taxes across the board, lower pension taxes, repeal the Affordable Care Act and put a moratorium on new federal regulations, Pence said.
He also told the crowd Trump would build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants, eliciting chants of “build the wall.”
“I guarantee you this: If you want a president who will upend the status quo in Washington...you just have one choice,” he said.
Pence called on Floridians to vote for Trump before entering the crowd to meet his supporters. People thrusted signs, rosary beads and clothes at him. Burns made a beeline for his one chance.
In the end, Pence signed the brim of the his cap with a black marker.
After the rally, Pence headed to Gainesville to watch the UF football team play the University of North Texas. Watching a Gators game had been on his bucket list, Pence said. He later posted on Twitter a photo of him getting off the plane in Gainesville.
“You guys know how to play some football,” Pence said at the rally.
Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Mike Pence addresses a crowd of more than 800 at The Villages on Saturday.
