LA CROSSE, Wis. — Back in the Badger State for the first time since accepting the Republican nomination for president in Milwaukee last month, former President Donald Trump held a town hall to talk about so-called kitchen table issues.
Thursday night wasn’t the typical Trump rally. Instead, his campaign hosted a town hall in the La Crosse Center and listened to concerns from those who campaign officials said were independent Wisconsinites.
The former president sat down with former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who used to be a Democrat, for a wide-ranging discussion.
Gabbard, who left the party in 2022, recently endorsed Trump, along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who suspended his campaign as an Independent candidate for president.
“Two former Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States,” Gabbard told the crowd.
As the conversation got underway, Luke, a junior at UW-La Crosse put the focus on rising prices.
“A pound of meat has gone from $4.00 to almost $7.00. I also would like to buy a home someday. That seems just impossible now. What’s your plan to make life more affordable and bring down inflation for someone like me?”
“We’re going to become the energy capital of the world,” Trump responded. “We’re going to pay down our debt, and we’re going to reduce your taxes still further. And your groceries are going to come tumbling down, and your interest rates are going to be tumbling down, and then you’re going to go out and buy a beautiful house.”
Supporters not on stage had their own topics they hoped would be talked about during Thursday night’s town hall.
“Make America healthy again—you know, we were happy to see RFK with him,” Nicole Voter from La Crosse explained. “We actually considered voting for RFK, but we’re really happy to see them together.”
She and her husband, Eric, said the freedom to make health care choices are top of mind in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m an emergency physician—been so for over 30 years,” Eric Voter said. “We had to act on a lot of information that was only partial information, and I’d like to get reassurance that if something like that happens in the future, we’re not going to act on partial information.”
However, for their uncle, Parviz Sohaei, who arrived in America in 1961 from Iran, immigration was his biggest concern.
“I myself am an immigrant, and it took me one year, to pass a lot of tests, to come to this beautiful country,” Sohaei said. “And, I had to go to school to learn English before I could go to college or get any job here. I am very concerned [about] the type of people coming in.”
While Trump primarily used the stage to showcase his “Make America Affordable Again” agenda, the topic of immigration was hardly ignored.
“They want to give them papers,” Trump added. “They want to make them citizens, and they want to give them your Social Security. They want to give them your Medicare.”
The latest trip to Wisconsin is Trump’s fifth this year and came just a day after his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, stumped in De Pere.