ALABAMA – President Trump on Saturday is expected to attend a pivotal college football matchup between the Tigers of Louisiana State University and the Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama, a pair of undefeated teams ranked No. 2 and 3 respectively in the College Football Playoff Rankings.
The game – set to kick off around 3:30 p.m. ET in Tuscaloosa, Ala. – will play out in a state Trump won by a large margin in the 2016 presidential election. But it’s unclear – following recent boos at the World Series in Washington, and a mix reaction from mixed martial arts fans in New York – what the football crowd’s response will be.
“I think it’s really exciting he chose to come here,” Alabama student Mackenzie Selldin, 21, told AL.com. “I think the cheering will override the booing.”
“I think it’s really exciting he chose to come here. I think the cheering will override the booing.”
— Mackenzie Selldin, 21, University of Alabama student
“He needs a group that will cheer him, not boo him,” Rich Crow, a retired professor of social work, told the outlet, referring to the president’s previous baseball and MMA stops.
On Thursday night, hundreds of people, many wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats, purchased tickets to attend Donald Trump Jr.’s “Triggered” book launch at a mall in Birmingham, AL.com reported. The president’s son arrived in Alabama not long after his contentious appearance on “The View” earlier in the day — but whether the president’s eldest son would join his father at the football game was unclear.
Meanwhile, local anti-Trump activists, Trace Fayard and Nic Gulas, raised nearly $8,000 to pay for a giant inflatable “Trump Baby” balloon to be set up just four blocks away from Tuscaloosa’s Bryant-Denny Stadium , The Washington Post reported.
A crowdfunding page titled “Get Baby Trump to Tuscaloosa” surpassed the $4,000 required to rent and transport the 20-foot tall blow-up caricature of a scowling, orange-faced president in a safety-pinned diaper, to the University of Alabama stadium. The balloon first made headlines last year during London protests to Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom. The crowdfunding page said the extra funds would be donated to the Montgomery, Ala.-based Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit that aims to combat mass incarceration and racial inequities.
