Donald Trump spoke to a standing room only crowd of 2,500 people at the Adler Theatre in Davenport Thursday.
This was Donald Trump's first visit to Iowa since the caucuses and since officially accepting the Republican nomination for president at his party's convention in Cleveland.
At the Davenport rally, Trump said he doesn't love the caucus system — no insult, he insists. But coming in second to Ted Cruz in the state helped prepare him for the rest of the primary race.
"I learned a lot from Iowa," Trump says. "And because I did — I really did well in Iowa, in all fairness. How many people were there, 17 by that time? But I came in second, and a close second. I then went to New Hampshire and did much better because of Iowa."
Jane Erickson of Rock Island says she likes that Trump speaks his mind and that he's not a politician.
"Some people say he misspeaks sometimes, but to me that's better than reading from a prompt," Erickson says. "It's coming from his heart."
Dawn Wood from Brookfield, Ill. likes that he puts Americans first.
"Taking care of our legal citizens instead of the illegals, and I don't want Syrians here," she says.
Some of Trump's policies — like his stance on immigration — have been called too harsh. But Drake Schroeder of Milan, Ill. says Trump's rhetoric doesn't bother him.
"Nothing he says worries me," Schroeder says. "I think it's good to finally have somebody who says what he means and who's not afraid to call people out for their wrong-doings."
Trump used his speech at the Adler to call out some speakers who criticized him at the Democratic National Convention.
"I wanted to hit a couple of those speakers so hard," Trump says.
It's that kind of rhetoric that worries Chris Rice of Rock Island. He stood outside the Adler Theatre, holding a sign with an image of a nuclear explosion that read "We must not let Donald trump acquire nuclear weapons."
"I don't think Donald Trump has the temperament to be our president," he says. "I envision that he's going to get us in a Twitter war where he's calling world leaders fat and ugly and it will end up in a nuclear holocaust."
Trump also campaigned in Cedar Rapids later that night.
