N.E. Police Union to Host Trump in Portsmouth, Endorsement Likely

Photo via AP

Just three days after Donald Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S., the Republican presidential frontrunner will be the guest of honor at a meeting of the New England Police Benevolent Association in Portsmouth on Thursday night.

The NEPBA told the Portsmouth Herald it invited Republicans Trump, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio, and Democrats Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley to its “presidential candidate’s forum” at the Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside Hotel. Only Trump and Bush RSVP’d, and Bush later said he couldn’t make it.

Executive director Jerry Flynn told the Herald that the NEPBA, which donated $250 to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh in 2013, according to OCPF filings, has endorsed both Republican and Democratic candidates in past years.

Flynn recently posted a photo of himself and Trump on his personal Facebook page, where he called Trump, “the NEXT president of the United States of America.”

When one commenter asked if there are any Muslim members of the NEPBA, Flynn responded, “I suggest that you read his EXACT comment—not what the liberal media is throwing.” Upon visiting Trump at his eponymous tower in Manhattan, Flynn said he has an “interesting vision for protecting police officers and correction officers on what he will do on his first day in office.”

At Thursday’s meeting in Portsmouth, the union will vote to either endorse Trump, who recently said he wouldn’t rule out special IDs and a database for Muslims, or no one.

In September, the NEPBA boycotted President Barack Obama’s Labor Day speech in Boston, for what it felt was his administration’s silence on violence against police officers. “Our members are enraged at his lack of support of law enforcement,” Flynn wrote. “It’s clear that he has an agenda and unfortunately, the police are not part of his agenda.”