One of former President Donald Trump’s most faithful supporters received special notice from Trump on Monday night after he won the Iowa caucus.
Ever since 2019, San Diego resident Blake Marnell has been appearing at Trump rallies wearing a trademark jacket that — on Monday night — Trump had to show to the crowd.
Trump was celebrating his victory when he interrupted his train of thought for a shout-out to Marnell.
“See, this gentleman, he’s dressed like a wall. I love this guy. He’s been at 150 rallies probably, right? He has the most beautiful outfit I’ve ever seen. It’s all beautiful brick,” he said.
“Will you come up here? Just come up here. Come on. It’s so nice to see, right? Come on up here. He’s emblematic of what we did,” Trump said.
“We built over 500 miles of wall. We were going to add another 200 miles. It’s much more than we promised. And we had the safest border in the history of our country. Now we have the worst border in the history of the world. Look at this man,” Trump said.
The crowd roared as Trump shook hands with Marnell.
Do we need a full wall at the southern border?
“Really nice. Nice to see you, man. You take care of yourself,” Trump said to Marnell, who he invited to the stage in a 2019 rally, according to USA Today.
A man wearing a suit that looked like a brick wall was invited on stage at President Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania on Monday. Blake Marnell’s suit looked like it was covered in bricks and he held a sign that said, “Build me.” pic.twitter.com/UmmzJC2RsC
— Politics Nowadays (@PoliticsNowdays) May 21, 2019
“Absolutely will,” Marnell replied.
“Thank you. I love that outfit. I love him. That’s great. We love it. That’s a hot selling jacket, by the way. But that represents what we did,” Trump said.
Earlier in his speech, Trump spoke about immigration.
“We’re going to seal up the border because right now we have an invasion. We have an invasion of millions and millions of people that are coming into our country,” he said.
“I can’t imagine why they think that’s a good thing. It’s a very bad thing. I think it’s a group of people that probably larger in number than New York state. And we can’t have that. We can’t have that. It’s not sustainable as a country. It’s horrible,” he said.
“And. you know, they’re coming from prisons and jails. They’re coming from all over. They’re coming from countries that most people have never heard of. And they’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums. They’re being emptied out into our country. And they’re terrorists,” he said.
Trump said the answer was, “we’re going to have to deport. We’re going to have to have a deportation level that we haven’t seen in this country for a long time since Dwight Eisenhower actually.”
Trump supporter and ‘Brick ‘Man’ Blake Marnell: “I believe President Trump will win. I think everybody knows that so the real question is by how much? If you go by polling, I think that he will be over 50%.” pic.twitter.com/z7WYiezVnK
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 15, 2024
Marnell has been a faithful Trump supporter, who in the 2020 campaign drove from his San Diego home to Yuma, Arizona, for a Trump rally, according to KGTV.
“I’ve purchased my brick suit last year to show support for border security and strong borders,” Marnell said then.
Marnell noted that he did not vote for Trump in 2016, saying, “Honestly I didn’t think he was going to be effective.”
Trump’s actions on taxes and border security changed his mind, he said then.
