AURORA, Colo. — Leaders of the Colorado Democratic Party admonished former President Donald Trump on Friday morning ahead of his rally in Aurora, calling out his false descriptions of the city and placing blame on him for the collapse of a bipartisan border security bill in February.
Trump will hold a rally at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center in Aurora on Friday at 1 p.m. In a press release announcing his visit, Trump’s campaign called Aurora a “war zone" that has seen an "seen an "influx of violent Venezuelan prison gang members from Tren de Aragua."
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Gov. Jared Polis, Congressman Jason Crow (CO-06), Congresswoman Diana DeGette (CO-01) and U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper and Sen. Michael Bennet gathered on Friday morning at the Cheluna Brewing Company inside Stanley Marketplace ahead of Trump's visit.
Polis described Aurora as the state's fast-growing town and third-largest in Colorado. Home to about 400,000 people, it is a "safe, vibrant place to live," he said, and boasts some of the best food in the state. He said crime has dropped significantly over the past two years — down 31% for auto thefts and 25% for burglaries — while acknowledging that the city is not free of crime.
But it is an "incredible place" to live, raise kids, retire, grow a business and explore, Polis said.
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"We even know that Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican himself, has called out the former president’s lies and distortions about Aurora and talked about how great a place Aurora is," he said.
On Tuesday, Aurora Mayor Coffman pushed back on the claims that Aurora was a "war zone" and has apartment complexes overrun by Venezuelan gang members.
“Former President Trump’s visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city – not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman told Denver7 in an interview. “My public offer to show him our community and meet with our police chief for a briefing still stands. The reality is that the concerns about Venezuelan gang activity have been grossly exaggerated. The incidents were limited to several apartment complexes in this city of more than 400,000 residents.”
As of Friday morning, there is no indication Trump will visit the apartment sites — or any other spots in Aurora — as it would present logistical challenges for the U.S. Secret Service since the apartments are in a neighborhood.
Watch the full press conference from Friday morning in the video below.
At Friday's press conference, Sen. John Hickenlooper stressed that Trump tanked "the most comprehensive border security bill in at least the past decade" because his campaign decided they wanted to run on the issue. The bill had bipartisan support, as well as support from the Border Patrol Union, and was the result of four and a half months of negotiations and compromise.
Hickenlooper said throughout the negotiations, there was "total buy-in" from both sides until Trump's campaign made the decision they needed the issue to run on. Later in the press conference, Congresswoman Diana DeGette added that according to the bill sponsor, "Donald Trump basely told the Republicans to kill the bill so that he could campaign on that issue."
The bill would have provided thousands of law enforcement along the border, new technology and training to discover drugs at the border, 4,300 asylum officers and additional judges to help new immigrants either gain asylum or go back to their country of origin, and more resources to communities that have taken on the burden of incoming immigrants, Hickenlooper said.
The bill was killed in February. It also provided wartime aid for Ukraine.
Regarding Trump's comments about Aurora, Hickenlooper said Trump took one fact and spun it "into a whole web of stories without any concern of who it is going to hurt." The oath of office requires a president to put country and Constitution first, he said, and unlike Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris has done that her whole life.
Harris has said she would bring back that bill and sign it into law, according to the Associated Press.
Sen. Michael Bennet said Friday morning that America cannot let Trump divide the country any more.
“Donald Trump has invited himself to Aurora to do what Donald Trump does best, which is to demonize immigrants, to lie and to serve his own political purposes," he said. "... He has such a pathological hatred for immigrants and for immigration in this country that he can't even see the economic benefits of immigration in the United States or in our history.”
Bennet was part of the Gang of Eight, a bipartisan group of senators who wrote the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744) in 2013, which was passed in the Senate with 68 votes but was killed in the House of Representatives by "Trump's allies that couldn't bear to have us actually fix the problem," Bennet said. Included within the bill was $40 billion in border security.
Harris takes those issues seriously, he said, and the country needs a leader that can pass this type of legislation, or the kind that was killed in February.
“We have to change and turn the page on this sorry chapter in American history," Bennet concluded.
Congressman Jason Crow, an Iraq war veteran who lives in Aurora, said he served alongside people from every corner of the country.
“We are people that came from everywhere but when we came together, we were stronger than our differences might suggest," he said. "We found commonality. We were Americans. We fought together, we served together and we drew strength from that diversity.”
His current home of Aurora has become one of the most diverse districts in the nation, he said. Trump is coming to Aurora to "tell lies and twist and distort" information, he said.
“He doesn't want us to talk about the fact that he will support and impose a national abortion ban, stripping rights from all American women," he continued. "He does not want us to talk about the fact that he will gut important protections for gun violence prevention. He does not want us to talk about that he will gut any efforts and all efforts to protect clean air and clean water and to address the climate crisis. He does not want us to talk about that he will slash taxes for the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations. He will do so on the backs of working people and middle class America. And he certainly doesn’t want us to be united. He knows that he cannot win if folks are united... We couldn't be more proud to be here today to tell the true story of who Aurora is."
Trump's comments have led to an increase in fear among immigrants and refugees in the community, Crow said.
“We will not allow (Trump) to drop into this community for a few hours at a luxury resort not even close to where these folks live and try to build their lives, and tell lies that make their ability to move forward much more difficult," he said.
Congresswoman DeGette described Aurora as a vibrant, diverse city. Like many other cities around the country, it has experienced gang violence, but the stats are following the national trend of decreasing violent crime, she said.
She said Trump's comments about Aurora are meant to distract from his failed policies. In Aurora Friday, he will continue to do that, while preying on the fears of Americans and putting Aurora residents at risk, she said.
All of the state leaders who spoke urged Coloradans to vote for Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.
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Trump's rally in Aurora Friday will begin at 1 p.m., with ticket holders allowed inside beginning at 9 a.m.
There is no on-site parking for the event. Two nearby parking lots have been made available — one at 56th and Himalaya and the other at 61st and Peña. The Colorado GOP announced there would be a limited number of shuttles to the event, but people may need to walk to the venue.
His visit comes just over three weeks after he vowed to visit Aurora during a New York rally on Sept. 18. He said during an event in Uniondale that he would come to both Aurora and Springfield, Ohio – which has gained national attention over debunked claims that Haitian immigrants were eating residents’ pets – in the ensuing weeks.
This marks his second visit in three months. He was in Aspen in August for a fundraising event.
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