Trump: 'Tremendously Confident We're Going To Win In Florida'
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DORAL (CBSMiami) – The Magic City, especially Little Havana, got a big dose of Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Trump is in town hoping to squeeze votes out of the Hispanic community – specifically, older Cuban exiles who are at odds with Obama's initiatives towards the Castro brother's controlled Cuba.
"If he got elected, we would like to stop trips to Cuba. We would like to tighten the situation," said Esteban Bovo with 2506 Brigade. "Because the way it is right now, whatever goes to Cuba does not get to the Cuban people."
Trump visited the 2506 Assault Brigade museum and library to honor Miami's veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion. More than a week ago, the group's executive board voted unanimously to back Trump.
"I understand that the brigade has never endorsed a candidate before me. I am humbled by this appointment from true Freedom Fighters," said Trump.
Trump did not fail to mention his opponent.
"Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton turns a blind eye to human rights violations that occur every single day [in Cuba]," said Trump.
Related: Hillary Clinton 'Not Taking Anything For Granted' In Florida
He also went after President Obama in Sanford, Florida.
"As you may remember, President Obama claims to have no knowledge whatsoever of Clinton's, Hilary Clinton's illegal e-mails, I have no knowledge...this guy is as bad as she is," he said.
Trump was referencing WikiLeak's new batch of hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's account.
In the email, Clinton communications staffer Josh Schwerin emailed a group of top aides noting that Mr. Obama "said he found out HRC was using her personal email when he saw it in the news."
"We need to clean this up," Clinton aide Cheryl Mills replied. "He has emails from her - they do not say state.gov."
Trump needs the reliably Republican conservative Cuban exile voters to turn out to shore up his statistically tight race with Hilary Clinton.
Florida is a must win for Trump.
"I think we're actually winning and I feel that it's going to be a tremendous victory," said Trump while at the Trump National Doral on Tuesday. "I feel tremendously confident that we're going to win in Florida."
Hundreds of thousands of Floridians are already voting. Tuesday marks the second day of early in-person voting. Early voting by mail began two weeks ago.
Nearly 300,000 Florida voters showed up for the first day of in-person early voting on Monday, new totals from state election officials showed. Altogether, more than 1.6 million Floridians have voted so far.
"In Florida, the number of people in the voting booths are massive, biggest they have ever seen," he said. "And a lot of them are wearing Trump hats and shirts, so I assume they are voting for us, voting for us, not me."
Traditionally, Republicans have run up a large advantage in mail-in-ballots, while Democrats rely on early voting to boost their turnout numbers. But this year the Democrats and Republicans are running early even. So far, slightly more than 665,000 Republican voters have cast ballots in the state, compared to slightly more than 658,000 Democrats. Another 300,000 voters with no party affiliation have also voted.
Trump started his day at his Trump National Doral where he trotted out employees for a rally and promoted his hotel.
He acknowledged his employees while in Doral, saying 80 percent of them are Hispanic. Some of those employees spoke at the podium for a few nice words about their boss.
"I love working here. I love my coworkers. They take very good care of us," said one employee.
"My name is Robert Gonzalez. I work in Doral for 27 years. It is my privilege to work for the president of the United States of America," said Gonzalez, a Trump Doral employee.
He also latched on to the news that Obamacare was going to have big premium increase in the coming year.
"The White House, our president, announced 25, 26 percent increase," Trump said. "That number is so wrong. That is such a phony number. You're talking about 60, 70, 80 percent in increases, not 25 percent."
Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less.
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