Six people were taken to hospital amid searing heat in Trump’s Nevada rally (Picture: Reuters)
Donald Trump whinged about ‘sweating like a dog’ while downplaying safety fears for supporters who came to hear him speak during sweltering heat.
The former US president held an outdoor rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, amid temperatures of 37.8°C on Sunday.
Campaign organisers scrambled extra medics, fans and bottled water after authorities expressed concerns the heat could reach unsafe levels.
Six people were hospitalised and 24 others were treated by medics on-site for mostly heat-related problems, Clark County Fire Department said.
Campaigners had to scramble extra medics for the event (Picture: Getty)
Trump told the crowd his team would help people who felt tired but complained that ‘everybody’ including the secret service was worried only about the crowd and not him.
‘They never mentioned me. I’m up here sweating like a dog,’ he said. ‘This is hard work.’
Remarking on the heat again later in his speech, he added: ‘I don’t want anybody going on me. We need every voter.’
‘I don’t care about you. I just want your vote,’ he continued, adding that he was joking.
Nevada is set to be one of the main battleground states in November’s race (Picture: Getty)
He went on to say that reporters at the rally would take his words out of context and tell viewers that he had said a ‘horrible’ thing onstage.
The 77-year-old later claimed the heat was ‘not as bad’ as he was expecting and that he was more angry with his speech teleprompters not working properly.
Nevada is one of six or seven ‘swing states’ which will likely decide the November presidential election.
Surveys carried out for Fox News by independent pollsters put Trump 5% ahead of Joe Biden in Nevada last week.
Trump’s campaign hopes to attract interest from Hispanic voters in the state (Picture: Reuters)
Trump is the Republican party’s presumptive nominee, meaning he won the primaries but has not been formally nominated yet.
Ahead of the event, his campaign pushed hard on its ‘Latino Americans for Trump Coalition’ and four of the warm-up speakers were Hispanic immigrants.
Trump also vowed to eliminate taxes on tips, a major source of income for the many service workers in Las Vegas.
He pledged to ‘do that right away, first thing in office,’ adding: ‘You do a great job of service, you take care of people and I think it’s going to be something that really is deserved.’
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