A “Baby Trump” blimp was flying high Saturday at a rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, near President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort to mark the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria that devastated Puerto Rico.
The 20-foot-high blimp, depicting a chubby Trump as a baby in a diaper apparently having a temper tantrum, was the highlight of the rally of some 800 protesters demanding increased funds to help Puerto Ricans impacted by the storm. A recent study said the hurricane and the lingering damage it caused claimed nearly 3,000 lives.
The rally began with a caravan of protesters driving past Mar-a-Lago waving Puerto Rican flags, blasting music and honking horns before speeches at the Meyer Amphitheater a few miles away. Trump wasn’t at Mar-a-Lago during the event.
A blimp depicting the president as an infant was first flown in London during for Trump’s visit to the U.K. in July.
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, a Democrat running for Florida governor against GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis, made a surprise appearance at the rally.
“We shouldn’t have to remind this country to do right by the people of this country,” Gillum told the crowd, The Palm Beach Post reported.
Anti-Trump protesters hope to fly two of six Baby Trump blimps near the president’s New Jersey golf club in Bedminster.
A nonprofit New Jersey Group, The People’s Motorcade, is transporting the family of blimps around the nation for protests against Trump and his policies. The activist organization bought the balloons with money raised on GoFundMe after getting permission to use the blimps from the original Brit creators.
“Baby Trump is a 20-foot-high balloon characterizing the petulant and juvenile nature of Donald Trump,” the group’s website states. “The Brits who created the balloon describe him as a ‘big angry baby with a fragile ego and tiny hands.’”
The statement is signed: “The babysitters.”
