Rancho Palos Verdes residents ask Trump’s help during presidential campaign press conference
While Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump fenced with reporters on a lawn overlooking the ocean, at Trump National Golf Club Friday morning, several hundred Trump supporters chanted, “Fight, fight, fight,” in front of the club.
Trump’s motorcade, comprised of a dozen black Chevrolet Suburbans, preceded by three dozen Los Angeles County Sheriff motorcycle officers, arrived at the golf club in Rancho Palos Verdes shortly after 9 a.m.
After his motorcade passed, flag waving supporters posed atop the Trump National Golf Club sign, whose base is Palos Verdes flagstone, and in front of the Trump campaign bus parked on Trump Drive.
The campaign bus is wrapped in a mural with iconic images of World War II solders raising the flag at Iwo Jima in 1945; Martin Luther King delivering his “I have a dream” speech” at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963; President John F. Kennedy and wife Jacquelyn, wearing her pink, pillbox hat, in a black Lincoln Continental convertible in the Dallas motorcade moments before the president was shot in 1963; and Trump raising his fist as blood runs down his face moments after he was shot at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13.
Other vehicles parked on Trump National Drive included flag-festooned Tesla Cyber Trucks, off-road Jeeps with signs that read “Stop the Bullshit,” and motorcycles linked by a banner that read “Legends for Trump.” The motorcycles belonged to the South Bay Legends in Their Own Minds Club. Members are mostly retired South Bay public safety officers, including Hermosa Beach Police Detective Steve Endom and Hermosa Firefighter Lee Lickhalter.
Mingling with the Trump supporters were about two dozen Portuguese Bend residents whose homes abut the golf course. Some of their homes have been destroyed. The remaining homes have had their gas and electricity turned off because of the recent landslides.
Portuguese Bend resident Patty Perkinson said, “We’re hoping Trump talks to us, and puts boots on the ground because we need help.” Over 200 Portuguese Bend homes have been damaged by the recent slides.
During his press conference, Trump blasted California Governor Newsome “for not doing much” to help Portuguese Bend homeowners, but declined to say what help he would provide if elected.
Rancho Palos Verdes resident Chris Pisano was one of the few anti-Trump rallyers at the Friday morning press conference.
Pisano moved to Rancho Palos Verdes in 2002, the year Trump National Golf Club opened.
“Trump has been nothing but trouble, starting with the giant American flag the city made him take down; suing the school district over a lease; having to tear out the ficus trees he illegally planted to block his club’s view of the Portuguese Bend homes because he said they are ugly; to me personally having to go to the Coastal Commission to block him from building a golf shop on his driving range.
“I want to get rid of him. Or at least get him off the national stage,” Pisano said. ER