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Read more here on President Trump’s rally in Phoenix.
PHOENIX — Hours before President Trump landed here on Tuesday for a campaign-style rally, hundreds of supporters and opponents gathered around the Phoenix Convention Center, where he was scheduled to speak. They shouted at one another, chanted slogans, hoisted placards and complained about the 108-degree heat. Some expressed worries that the event would set off the kind of deadly violence that broke out in Charlottesville, Va., this month.
Large protests are expected near the president’s rally in downtown Phoenix on Tuesday night, his first such event since he drew wide condemnation for his comments on the violence in Charlottesville, Va., this month.
Waving an American flag as he marched past supporters of Mr. Trump, Hugo Torres pointed to a list emblazoned on his T-shirt under the heading “Bad Hombres”: former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Ku Klux Klan and the 45th president of the United States.
The rally, scheduled for 7 p.m. local time at the Phoenix Convention Center, is Mr. Trump’s first visit as president to Arizona, where he made fiery remarks on a signature issue — immigration — during his election campaign last year.
“It’s an insult to me as a freedom-loving American for Trump to come to this place to spew his hate,” said Mr. Torres, 41, a house painter who drove from Tucson to protest. “This is our house, our state, our country. But Trump and his people think it belongs just to them.”
The state is home to high-profile supporters of Mr. Trump, like Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County who built a national reputation on his hard-line stance against undocumented immigrants and was recently convicted of criminal contempt of court. But it is also home to staunch critics of Mr. Trump, like Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain, both Republicans who have feuded openly with the president.
Shortly after Mr. Torres said those words, a woman waiting to get inside the convention center, who wore a T-shirt that read “Trump 45: Suck it up buttercup,” shouted at him: “Hey, can I see your papers? Let me see your papers, dude!”
Amid the fallout from Mr. Trump’s assertion that “both sides” were to blame for the violent clashes in Charlottesville, and following the president’s suggestion that he could pardon Mr. Arpaio, Phoenix is bracing for throngs of protesters to come out in 100-degree heat.
The scheduled appearance by Mr. Trump has touched nerves in a city that has been at the center of the debate over restricting immigration. The mayor, Greg Stanton, a Democrat, urged Mr. Trump to delay his trip in an op-ed in The Washington Post, writing that the president “may be looking to light a match.”
Here are answers to some of the questions ahead of the event.
Still, many Trump supporters said they welcomed the visit as an opportunity to express their views. Tim Foley, an Army veteran who leads his own citizens’ border patrol in Arizona, showed his Glock handgun to a reporter, emphasizing that he and his comrades came to Phoenix to “keep the peace.”
Several opposition rallies and marches have been planned, according to the Arizona Republic. By Tuesday, more than 3,900 people had indicated on Facebook that they would attend one event, Protest Trump Downtown Phoenix, across the street from the convention center. Another 2,700 said they planned to attend White Supremacy Will Not Be Pardoned, organized by the Puente Human Rights Movement.
“Ignorance is fueling the opposition to Trump,” Mr. Foley, 57, said in an interview outside the convention center alongside other members of his Arizona Border Recon, which he calls a nongovernmental organization. (Critics call it a militia.) “We’re the last line of defense. No one wants another Charlottesville.”
Another rally, Never Again: Jews and Allies Against Hate, was planned by David Schapira, a Tempe city councilman, and State Senator Robert Meza for the State Capitol earlier in the afternoon. A church in Phoenix also scheduled a march from the convention center to the Capitol Tuesday evening.
The violence at a rally of white supremacists in Virginia this month, which left a 32-year-old woman dead — and Mr. Trump’s widely criticized responses to those events — had many in the city bracing for clashes. Police officers barricaded downtown streets and patrolled the area. Restaurants shut down early and hotels restricted access to their lobbies to guests carrying key cards.
The Phoenix New Times reported that one group associated with the anti-fascist, or antifa, movement had called for “an anti-fascist & anti-colonial contingent against Trump’s rally” on Tuesday.
“We have a president without any sense of morality,” said Jimmy Muñoz, 72, an Army veteran who showed up with his family to protest. “Trump loves to rile people up and appeal to their worst instincts. We’re here to show we’re better than that.”
The Republic reported that events were also planned in support of Mr. Trump, including a Young Republicans meetup and a motorcycle ride.
Others, however, expressed glee about the event.
Jeri Williams, the police chief in Phoenix, said in a statement that the department would have “maximum staffing” during the rally and was working “24/7” to prepare for it.
“I can’t describe a Trump rally other than they’re the most fun things to go to,” said Paula Ropnik, 59, a consultant for a physical wellness company. Ms. Ropnik said she wanted to show her support for Mr. Trump and Mr. Arpaio.
The mayor of Phoenix, Greg Stanton, a Democrat, has urged Mr. Trump to delay his trip.
“Trump’s base here in Arizona loves Sheriff Joe,” she said.
“America is hurting,” Mr. Stanton wrote Monday, in an opinion piece for the Washington Post. “And it is hurting largely because Trump has doused racial tensions with gasoline. With his planned visit to Phoenix on Tuesday, I fear the president may be looking to light a match.”
Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, was planning to greet Mr. Trump but not to attend the rally, according to the Arizona Republic.
Neither Mr. Flake nor Mr. McCain, both of whom last week tweeted about their apparent disapproval of Mr. Trump’s comments on Charlottesville, is expected to attend. Mr. Trump called Mr. Flake, who is up for re-election next year, “toxic,” and praised the senator’s primary opponent on Twitter last week. And, during the same news conference when he commented at length on Charlottesville, Mr. Trump took a jab at Mr. McCain, who derailed the Republican health care bill with a dramatic thumb-down vote on the Senate floor last month: “You mean Senator McCain who voted against us getting good health care?”
Nothing has been officially announced. Mr. Trump has discussed a pardon for Mr. Arpaio, according to an associate of the president who spoke with The New York Times, and told a Fox News reporter that he was “seriously considering” it. But some of his advisers are concerned that such a move would add fuel to the firestorm surrounding the president’s recent comments about race and further divide the country.
Mr. Arpaio, who was ousted by voters in November, frequently employed anti-immigrant rhetoric and was one of Mr. Trump’s most loyal supporters on the campaign trail. Earlier this summer, a federal judge ruled Mr. Arpaio had committed a crime by refusing to stop detaining suspected undocumented immigrants despite a court order. He faces up to six months in prison and is to be sentenced in the fall.
Mr. Arpaio said on Monday night that he would not attend the rally.
Mr. Trump won Arizona somewhat narrowly, with 48.1 percent of the state’s vote compared with 44.6 percent won by Hillary Clinton. Republican presidential candidates have previously claimed the state with wider margins of victory — Mitt Romney won it by 10.1 percentage points in 2012, and Mr. McCain won by 8.8 points in 2008 — but the state has edged more Democratic as its Latino population has grown.
