JACKSON—Valley residents and visitors sought to catch a glimpse of former President Donald Trump as he twice traversed Jackson Hole in a motorcade to attend an expensive invitation-only fundraiser at the Four Seasons Resort on Saturday.
The Republican presidential nominee made no public appearances, but handsful of people waited along streets and roads to watch his procession of some 15 vehicles drive by. By all accounts, Trump remains deeply popular in Wyoming, having won the state by wide margins in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
He landed at the Jackson Hole Airport very early Saturday morning after attending a rally in Bozeman, Montana. He then went from his lodging at the Rusty Parrot Lodge to Teton Village for the luncheon fundraiser, then back to the airport to depart at 3:40 p.m.
“If I had my flags out, he might roll down the window.”
Margie Aeckerle
Flight tracking services said the Gulfstream 550 twin jet with “Trump 2024” painted on the side was headed for Aspen, Colorado.
“I came here to see my president,” said Margie Aeckerle, a 50-year Jackson resident who was roadside near the airport Saturday afternoon sporting a patriotic blouse, MAGA cap over her sun bonnet, and waving two American flags.
“I’m so excited my mouth is dry,” she said.
Aeckerle was hoping her red, white and blue would attract Trump’s attention.
“If I had my flags out,” she said, “he might roll down the window.”
But police asked her and others to move along before the motorcade arrived.
On the square
Trump’s private appearance was counterbalanced by a public rally supporting the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz.
About 200 people assembled on the Jackson Town Square on Friday evening to wave signs at passing motorists and pedestrians for about an hour.
Leslie Petersen, a longtime Democratic party member, office holder and activist in Teton County and Wyoming who attended the rally, said her party’s “return to joy” theme was not just a slogan.
She characterized the sentiment as “an honest to God fact,” in a text message sent after the rally. “The joy and conviviality in the crowd was evident and the number of hugs uncountable.”
Drive-by supporters honked horns regularly as they passed the rally, which took place in the heart of one of Wyoming’s few left-leaning communities. A group of about five Trump supporters briefly shouted their views from across the street. Rally goers reported at least one instance of being flipped off.
“The number of honks and thumbs-up from cars and passersby was further evidence of widespread Harris support,” Petersen said.
Diehard Democrat and Hawaii native Brian Tanabe couldn’t pass up the chance to try and get a photograph of Trump’s plane in front of the Tetons on Saturday afternoon. After being rained out of a hike in the hills, he and companion Rick Knori hung out on the access road to the airport hoping to snag a picture of Trump’s big jet with a mountain backdrop.
“We just thought it would be special – for his wife,” Tanabi said, pointing to Knori. She’s a Trump fan, they said.
“Nothing like a Trump keepsake,” Tanabe said.
Trump’s big jet, a Boeing 757, had a mechanical problem Friday and landed in Billings instead of Bozeman. After his rally there, he took the smaller jet to Jackson Hole. The Gulfstream presented a less impressive scene than its larger cousin presumably would have.
That didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of Greg Falk, 82, who was roadside north of the airport when the plane took off. He was returning from the Bozeman rally with two friends.
A Star Valley resident who has operated an outdoor guide service in Jackson Hole for 30 years, he was still high on the excitement from the night before.
“He was fantastic,” Falk said of Trump. “The crowd was fantastic.
“He’s our kind of person,” Falk said. “He’s strong. He cares about our country.”
No support for ending the genocide in gaza, no more support for vance or trump or anyone enabling bibi.
I love President Trump and hope to god he becomes our President again. I am not rich, like many of his followers, and have just donated to his presidential campaign.
The Wyoming people have always followed the lead of the wealthy in the State, early on they were the monied Cattleman, then the wealthy extraction moguls and now a ‘wanna be’ NY real estate huckster. Wyoming voters have been hoodwinked into voting against their own interests: voting for Right to Work laws (against unions); calling Social Security and Medicare ‘socialist’ when Wyomingites rely on these programs to survive, and being subsidized by the Federal government to a larger extent than most States while screaming about Federal ‘overreach’, etc. Very sad!
What, Margie didn’t have the $5K to get in?
Ah yes, the Man of the Golden Commodes is really A Man of the People.
And I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
I will not believe for one second that JHIA let some lowly millionaire’s clunky little Gulfstream sit and molder on their beautiful tarmac for the better part of a lovely summer Saturday… If this report turns out to be true, I should hope that someone had the good sense to wheel a dumpster or two out in front of the the eyesore to help protect our glorious viewshed…
I apologize profusely for my earlier post. I was just trying to poke a little fun. Truth as it turns out is that the G550 that Mr. Trump is using is Jeffrey Epstein’s hand-me-down… There aren’t enough dumpsters in existence to handle that stinking pile of garbage…
I’d bet $1000 that well over 50% of the people who vote for Trump do not love him. We tolerate him because we HATE the alternative.
I would bet twice that much that 50% of Trump supporters have not watched one of his rallies in the last year. If they did, they would see would see how bad his dementia has gotten. He is not lying any more. He believes the stuff he makes up. Project 2025 knows it, and they are prepared to ride roughshod over him from Day-1, to dismantle democracy, erase LGBTQ-people, criminalize porn, recognize a fertilized-egg as a human-being and charge people with murder if one dies, outlaw IVF and birth-control, and remove protections from endangered-species so they can drill for oil anywhere. So stick with your sunk-cost fallacy and vote for Donold again.
I’m just so glad I live in Wyoming, where most of us are still unwoke, and the few residents that really belong on the left coast are relatively insignificant voices drowned out by common sense.
So glad to know Wyoming is TRUMP country, I’m from Texas and we, also,
Are for a Donald J Trump. We need him now, more so, than ever before.
Please explain to me why our country needs him. His message since 2016 has been, that this is a failing nation and only he can fix it. It seems his whole message is based in creating fear for the uninformed. He has no substance whatsoever. It would be nice to hear a trump supporter explaining what his platform is. I haven’t heard anything that he says that’s going to make America any better.
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5070566/trump-news-conference
This is who you people think we need?
Does anyone besides Chuck Davis believe what NPR desperately wants him to belive?
“NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public’s trust
UPDATED APRIL 10, 2024
NPR’s top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.
“An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America,” writes Uri Berliner.
A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR’s former CEO, John Lansing, has fed “the absence of viewpoint diversity,” Berliner writes.”
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/09/1243755769/npr-journalist-uri-berliner-trust-diversity
Feel free to fact check the fact checking. Or, you can continue to try and discredit anyone or anything that is honest about your political lord and savior.
Leslie and the Donald. There’s a political pair to draw to.
Cowboys supporting the New York billionaire (well former billionaire) real estate mogul who inherited all of his money. Makes sense.
Trump cheats when playing golf as well as paying his bills
Trump, the biggest fraud in the land. Oh yea, he’s a felon now. Better vote him back into office.
Liberals are all braindead.
what a well thought out reply.
I think the world is a bit more complicate than that. Intelligent people can have different perspectives based on their values and experiences. Labeling those who disagree with you as braindead suggests you cannot imagine any perspective other than your own. This could be due to the complete mastery of all relevant information, or a failure of imagination.
I find it unbelievable that there are so many people in Wyoming still blinded by his fear and Hate. I am really excited about the Harris campaign and her message of getting us out of Trump’s Darkness and into more joy. Go Kamala
Could we please not besmirch the good name of the Grateful Dead with comparisons to that?
I can’t think of a more apt comparison, sorry. As quoted in the CowboyStateDaily:
John and Eagleson and his wife Bernice drove from eastern Washington to see Trump in person.
Although Eagleson didn’t expect anything more than a standard Trump speech, he said they still wanted to come and see him in person to feel the adrenaline rush.
“It’s the camaraderie of it all,” he said.
Trump still owes the city of Billings nearly $ 45,000 for extra police, security, and overtime from 2018. Were it me, I would have impounded his plane till the past due bill was settled. Trump still owes $ 13,000 to Missoula MT . It seems the Trump campaigns and his organization are among the worst of the worst for stiffing city governments for the expenses they burden them with. Waddya mean –Trump doesn’t pay his bills ? I’m shocked ( not ).
In fact, there is a web page that has accurately researched and posted a list of 10 American cities that are owed nearly $ 1 million from the Trump organization stiffing them on bills they promised to cover. It’s from the Center for Public Integrity , so don’t dismiss the source – they are unimpeachable and the records they draw on are public records. That’s how you learn the Trumpers still owe the city of El Paso TX nearly half a million dollars . When Beto O’ROurke was running for President and is from El Paso , he gladly paid for the expenses of hosting events there . Trump is a scofflaw. The story cited here is five years ago. Since then it’s gotten much , much worse..https://publicintegrity.org/politics/donald-trump-police-cities-bills-maga-rallies/
So when you hear Trump boasting out loud how much he supports law and order and the police , ” I Back the Blue ” , he really doesn’t when it comes to paying them. Words are cheap.
FYI
Donald Trump truly made America great again. Some people have been asking this question: Can you name one thing that Joe Biden & Kamala Harris have done that was correct and in the best interest of the American people since he took the oath of office to become the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021? I have yet to have that question answered in an honest or truthful manner. There is no need to elaborate on how inflation is becoming a problem or how the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants are streaming across the southern border carrying the COVID-19 virus or how many ‘progressive’ U.S. cities have become Cesspools where crime and violence are the order of the day with people sleeping on the streets while the Biden-Harris team welcomes in illegals with no skills or education from all over the world. That is no problem for the Biden-Harris team to concern themselves with as long as they can put them up in hotels and fly and bus them all over the nation at tax payer expense.
The Montana-rally was a Grateful Dead concert. It’s all Republicans have got. Use lies to stoke mass-hysteria. Here are the Top-Five, most provably-false lies that Trump told at this rally
1. There is no all electric-vehicles MANDATE. There is only a GOAL to have half of all new-car sales be EVs, in five years.
2. Harris was never the Border-Czar. Only Republicans ever used that term. She was given a diplomatic and research assignment to look into the root-causes of why people leave their home countries to come here.
3. Imane Khelif is not transgender, and never boxed as a man.
4. Crime and violent-crime have gone down every year since Biden took office.
5. Illegal-migrants pay into Social Security, if they work. But they cannot collect Social Security, so migrants are actually shoring up Social Security.
TDS.
There are none so blind as those who will not see…
No. It’s the Democrats who are playing politics with the border.
The Border Act would not secure the border. Among other weaknesses, it fails to provide a solution to the most serious problem, which is that Biden has released so many asylum seekers into the country that our asylum system has broken.
One of its other weaknesses is the provision that gives authority to shut down the border, which wouldn’t kick in until the seven-day average number of cumulative encounters with inadmissible migrants is between 4,000 and 5,000 per day. And it would be discretionary unless the seven-day average is above 5,000 per day.
In other words, the administration would have the discretion to catch and release up to 5,000 inadmissible migrants per day — almost 2 million per year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) says that if Border Act reaches the House, it will be “dead on arrival.” It even is facing opposition from Senate Democrats, including Alex Padilla of California, who says the bill “misses the mark” and amounts to “dismantling” the asylum system.
This isn’t the first time Senate Democrats have enlisted the assistance of a few Senate Republicans to produce a so-called “bipartisan bill” that isn’t likely to get much Republican support and will be “dead on arrival” if it reaches the House.
Why Evan stop in Jackson Hole?