Updated 1.50pm
PROTESTERS OPPOSED TO Donald Trump hurled rocks and bottles outside a rally he spoke at in New Mexico on Tuesday, the same day the billionaire won the Republican presidential primary in Washington state.
The success was overshadowed by violent anti-Trump demonstrations in Albuquerque, in the southwestern state of New Mexico.
Chaos erupted outside a Trump rally when protesters burst through metal barriers and tried to storm the city convention center, where the provocative Republican was speaking.
The crowd threw burning T-shirts, bottles and rocks at police, while police on horseback and officers wielding clubs used pepper spray and smoke grenades to try to disperse the crowd.
“Several #APB officers are being treated for injuries as a result of being hit by rocks. At least one subject arrested from the riot,” Albuquerque police said via Twitter early today.
The protesters, several of whom waved Mexican flags, chanted expletives about Trump. Some also waved signs with expletive-laden anti-Trump slogans in Spanish.
Most of the protesters left before midnight, police said.
Mexican wall
Trump has proposed building a wall on the Mexican border, suggested that Mexican immigrants were rapists and drug dealers, and urged the deportation of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Trump addressed a rally of about 4,000 people but was frequently interrupted by protesters, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
Police managed to stop a group of about 100 protesters who had tried to storm the convention center when Trump was speaking, the newspaper said. Riot police were deployed soon after.
Trump’s Washington victory
US networks called the race in Washington state for Trump shortly after polls closed at 8pm (3am GMT).
With more than two-thirds of ballots counted, Trump earned 76 percent of the vote.
“Thank you Washington! #Trump2016 #MakeAmericaGreatAgain,” the candidate wrote on Twitter.
Trump is the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, and while he is not officially the flag bearer yet he is on the cusp.
He headed into the race in the northwestern state with 1,189 delegates, according to a CNN tally, just 48 delegates short of the 1,237 needed for the nomination.
Washington state had 44 delegates up for grabs. Trump will therefore cross the threshold and clinch the nomination on June 7, when California and four other states vote on the final day of the Republican primary contest.
The real estate mogul’s former rival, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, as well as Ohio Governor John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, were still on the Washington ballot even though they already dropped out of the race.
$1 million pledge
It also emerged today that Trump has started the process of making good on a $1 million pledge to US military veterans, four months after he first promised the money.
Instead of attending a Fox News debate on 28 January, the presidential candidate held a televised fundraiser for veterans in Des Moines, Iowa.
At the event, Trump had claimed that $6 million had been raised for veterans causes including a $1 million donation from himself.
In the months since, however, some US new reporters have been chasing Trump and others for evidence that the money was actually donated.
In this conversation with Washington Post journalist Drew Harwood from earlier this month, Trump refused to tell the reporter what veterans charities he had made his donation to.
“Why should I tell you? Why would I want to do that?”, Trump said.
Following up on this exchange, another Washington Post journalist David Fahrenthold took to Twitter to look for veterans groups who had received the pledged money from Trump.
It provoked an instant response from Trump who again repeated his claim that he personally donated $1 million following his fundraising drive.
Trump even released a video calling the media ‘dishonest’ for its reporting of the story.
Fahrenthold repeated his call for veterans groups to come forward and yesterday evening the reporter said that he’d spoken to a veterans group who’d been contacted by the Trump campaign.
The reporter says that they were contacted only yesterday by the campaign who sought their charity number.
The Washington Post says it has established that Trump had contacted a veterans charity, the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, on Monday pledging all of the his $1 million but that as of yesterday the money had not yet been transferred.
The paper said it had spoken to the charity who said that they had been in touch with Trump’s representatives.
“The foundation is thrilled, because the [money] is going to help a lot of people. Especially the children,” Sue Kallstrom told the Washington Post.
Asked about the rest of the $6 million pledged during the fundraiser, Trump said that he wasn’t sure of the figure but that,
For the most part, I think they all came through.
- Additional reporting Ronan Duffy
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