Venturing beyond his typical audience of uniformly-adoring supporters, Donald Trump was showered with boos, heckling but also applause as he addressed the Libertarian National Convention in Washington DC on Saturday night.
The very idea of his speech was unusual. As the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake noted when it was announced weeks ago, “Even for the Libertarian Party, inviting another party’s 2024 nominee to speak even as it nominates a candidate to oppose them is something.”
Between that dynamic and the fact that Trump’s resume is full of items that are repulsive to libertarians, the party’s invitation was deeply controversial…as evidenced by this delegate’s motion on Friday:
In addition to party delegates, Saturday’s crowd also included Trump supporters who bought tickets to the event. When they periodically broke out in chants of “WE WANT TRUMP,” libertarians drowned them out with “END THE FED.”
