After hundreds of protesters forced Donald Trump to ditch his motorcade Friday and enter the hotel playing host to the California Republican Convention on foot, the GOP frontrunner said the experience “felt like I was crossing the border.”
“That was not the easiest entrance I’ve ever made,” Trump told a laughing audience at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Burlingame, California. “My wife called and said there were helicopters following you and we went under a fence and through a fence. Oh, boy. It felt like I was crossing the border, actually. It’s true. I was crossing the border. But I got here.”
Demonstrators holding “Dump Trump” signs blocked the highway outside the hotel and some pushed through police barricades in an effort to enter the event. Helicopter footage showed the GOP frontrunner and his security detail hightailing it across the freeway to enter the Hyatt through a side door.
Trump seemed unfazed by the chaos outside, calling the disruption “fun” and “a little different.”
He circled back to the protesters later in his speech while mentioning that California Republican Party Chairman Jim Brult had asked him to take time to snap a few photos once he made his way inside the event.
“He called me, he said, Mr. Trump, would you do me a favor? Would you take maybe 10, 15 pictures? I say, absolutely, Jim. So I’m coming through dirt and mud and under fences. So you all walk through the lobby, I go under fences,” Trump said, to laughter from the audience.
“I’m coming through, trying to get all the dust and everything off. And the 20 people that he told me about, turned out to be about what? 6, 700 people? My hand, I’m shaking hands, taking pictures. So that’s why he’s a great leader, right,” he continued.
