Donald Trump found love Thursday night. He's been trying to get the word out that he loves Latinos and "Latinos love Trump," after widespread criticism of his stance on immigration.
At a campaign event Thursday in Las Vegas, Trump pulled onstage an immigrant from Colombia who was holding a copy of the People magazine as he was talking about it.
The woman jumped up onstage screaming with come-on-down-you-just-won-a-car excitement, "Mr. Trump!"
"Where you from?" Trump asked.
"I'm from Colombia."
"I'm Hispanic, and I vote for Mr. Trump. We vote for Mr. Trump," she said, hands held high in the air. "We love you, we love you, all the way to the White House."
Trump could barely contain his excitement. With a big grin, he put his hands on her shoulders, then appears to have put his hands on her hips. He kissed her three times.
"I swear to you, I think she's totally beautiful and great, I never met her before I swear," Trump said.
Trump's campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks told NPR it was "completely spur of the moment."
The Las Vegas Sun identified the woman as Myriam Witcher, and quoted her praising Trump's opposition to immigrants who enter the country illegally. "He needs to send illegal [immigrants] out of the country. I came here legally," she told the Sun, "I'm Hispanic, Latina and I love me some Trump."
"Viva Las Vegas. Viva Trump," she told the Sun after the speech.
But despite the love from Witcher, Trump still has a long way to go with Latinos if he's looking for love. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo survey found nearly three in four Latinos say they have a negative view of him. And at Thursday night's rally, immigration reform activists tried to enter Trump's speech with a papier-mache replica of him but were reportedly kicked out by casino security.
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