LAS VEGAS — Donald Trump stopped in swing-state Nevada Friday to stump for his popular proposal “No Tax on Tips,” even as he picked up a potentially huge tip himself: an endorsement from departing independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“We just had a very nice endorsement from RFK,” Trump told a crowd of 200 supporters in a Sin City restaurant’s banquet room. “I want to thank Bobby. That was very nice. He’s a great guy and respected by everybody.”
Trump used the nod from the Democratic scion to take a shot at his original opponent, who withdrew from the race after pressure from his own party.
“The Democrats treated him very badly, and then they treated Biden just like him,” the ex-prez told reporters after the event.
Trump addressed other news of the day, saying there’s “a lot to learn” from the suspension of at least five Secret Service agents, including one from his protection detail, this week following an investigation of the Butler, Pa., assassination attempt that left one rally attendee dead and two wounded.
Twenty-year-old shooter Thomas Crooks hit the former president, who narrowly escaped death with a serendipitous turn of the head.
Trump views Nevada — where a Redfield and Wilton poll this week shows him leading Vice President Kamala Harris 43% to 42%, though that may change depending on what the 6% backing Kennedy decide — as a crucial element in his quest to return to the White House after losing in 2020.
“If we win this state, if we win Nevada, we’re going to win something that’s going to be very, very special,” he told the crowd.
Opponents hit Trump hard during this week’s Democratic National Convention, but he defended the 2022 6-3 Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade, which returned abortion regulation to the states: “Nobody wanted it — nobody wanted it — in the federal government.”
As a female reporter asked Trump about “taking away abortion rights,” the crowd erupted with shouts of “Bulls-it” and “Baby killer” directed at the journalist.
As typical at his rallies, the former prez addressed a litany of issues.
Of Harris’ corporate-tax-hike plan, he said, “If they charge too much on taxes, these companies will leave the United States and take the jobs with them.”
He pushed the release of federal land for development: “We’re gonna have housing built, and it will be great for Nevada.”
But “No Tax on Tips” remained the focus. Trump chided Harris for appropriating proposal he first made June 9 at a massive outdoor rally here.
“They copied us two months later. She’s the greatest flip-flopper in history. She went from communism to capitalism in two weeks,” he said.
He said Harris sponsored legislation to eliminate the tip credit and impose a service charge instead, forcing workers to earn a minimum wage.
Not everyone in the service industry here is confident about the Trump pledge. Two hours before the event, local Democrats trotted out union officials, workers and a local barbershop owner to throw cold water on the plan, despite the Culinary Union’s quick endorsement of Trump’s proposal months before Harris followed his lead.
But Nicole Williams, a member of the Bartenders Union local, who tends bar at the Wynn resort on the Las Vegas Strip, sharply disagrees with union leadership in Nevada. She told The Post Trump’s plan would help her and her husband raise their family of seven children.
“I had to return to work a lot sooner than planned after my nine-month-old baby was born eight weeks prematurely last November because of the economy,” Williams said at the Trump event. “The increased cost means that our family has had to cut back on extras, like my girls taking gymnastics, my six-year-old doing flag football.”
Williams said keeping “the money in my own family’s pockets, rather than the federal government, would make a huge difference in my life and the lives of those in my community.”
