Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) on Wednesday tried to tee up a moment of silence for a fallen police officer at a rally for President Donald Trump and was awkwardly met with boos from a Las Vegas crowd.
“So I know Pastor Teis spoke about Officer Abdelnabi a few moments ago,” began Lombardo before a string of boos rang out in the room.
“No, no, we’re not booing, we’re not booing him,” continued Lombardo as he shook his head. “He’s the officer that passed away here recently, so…”
Austin Abdelnabi — a 30-year-old Las Vegas police officer and U.S. Marine Corps veteran — was fatally shot after being “ambushed” by an armed suspect on Tuesday, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a press conference.
Lombardo, after admonishing the booing, asked for the crowd’s “indulgence” in a moment of silence for the officer.
At least one outlet, The Nevada Independent, speculated that the booing was an apparent response to someone hearing a name like that of Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race whose primary victory on Tuesday sparked further attacks toward his ethnicity and Muslim faith.
Critics on social media drew similar conclusions about the boos. Journalist Zaid Jilani wrote on X, “Is there any elected Republican speaking out against how virulently racist so much of the party has become? I’ve never seen anything like this in my lifetime.”
Raw Story’s Matthew Chapman used Aaron Rupar’s clip of the moment to call out MAGA supporters for “just reflexively attacking anyone with a Middle Eastern sounding name now.”
“Between this, and MAGA voters in Michigan rejecting *Trump-endorsed* Amir Hassan in favor of a Some Dude who dropped out of the race weeks ago… just insanely bleak,” he wrote.
And political streamer @hutchinson declared in a post, “This is in so many ways a clip that you could use to define the modern Republican Party.”