Tarkanian tells Carson City club his support for Trump still strong

U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian told the Carson City Republican Women’s Club on Tuesday he will continue to strongly back President Donald Trump because he’s doing the things the nation needs.

“People may not like some things he says but they like his policies,” he said. “Donald Trump is going to be a much greater president than Clinton was every going to be.”

Incumbent Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, he said, has been on both sides of too many issues and doesn’t represent what Nevadans want or need.

Tarkanian conceded he won’t raise as much cash as Heller in his primary campaign to unseat the incumbent.

“He has got to raise at least twice as much money because he’s got to defend both sides of his record.”

Speaking to an audience of about 40 at the Casino Fandango banquet room he said after Heller voted against repeal of the Affordable Care Act, “I got calls from literally over 100 people saying you’ve got to run.

“The problem with the Affordable Care Act is it isn’t affordable,” he said adding his health insurance went from a bit above $400 a month to $1,800 a month.

Tarkanian clarified one potentially controversial stand — his support for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.

“I don’t want it as a storage facility,” he said.

He said Nevada must work with the federal government, “and not just fight it.” Yucca, he said, should become a reprocessing facility that would safely convert the high-level nuclear waste into materials that can be used again. Nevada, he said, could then use the money from reprocessing the waste to pay for a long list of state needs from education to Medicaid funding. And building the facility, he said, would pump more than $90 billion into the state’s economy.

He said Washington, D.C., isn’t being run for the benefit of middle class Americans.

“Hard working Americans, they don’t have a voice in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “I will be that voice.”

He said he strongly supports Trump’s America First policy and doesn’t believe organizations that provide abortions should receive federal funding.

“I don’t see how we give $540 million a year to Planned Parenthood,” he said.

He also charged Heller has been running a “deceitful campaign,” accusing him of taking nearly $700,000 from a nonprofit charity he runs — the Tarkanian Basketball Academy. Tarkanian said that consists of the $48,000 annual salary he received for running the program for a total of 14 years — a total of $672,000.