Super Bowl winner throws his support behind Donald Trump

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is receiving support from another former NFL player.

After retired stars Antonio Brown and Brett Favre expressed their preference for Trump, retired Denver Broncos defensive lineman and Super Bowl winner Derek Wolfe was elected the 45th president Friday at a recent event in Aurora, Colorado.

“Make sure you vote early because you know they’re cheating,” Wolfe, 34, told the crowd at the event, which targeted undocumented immigrants. ‘So cast your vote in time. They’re going to cheat. And that fight starts with casting a vote for someone who will put America first. And I believe that man is Donald J. Trump, baby.

“So make sure everyone you know votes in November because that’s going to be really important because we can’t let them deceive us again,” Wolfe continued, repeating Trump’s unproven claims of election fraud in 2020.

Trump’s candidacy wasn’t the only issue on Wolfe’s mind. He also raised concerns about a proposed ban on hunting mountain lions and bobcats in Colorado, where he has made his home since his retirement in 2022.

Derek Wolfe’s support for Trump follows that of other ex-NFL stars like Antonio Brown

Trump dances on stage in Aurora, Colorado – a city he says has been 'contaminated by Venezuela'

Trump dances on stage in Aurora, Colorado – a city he says has been ‘contaminated by Venezuela’

Derek Wolfe hoists the Super Bowl trophy on the steps of the City and County Building during the Denver Broncos Super Bowl championship celebration and parade on February 9, 2016

Derek Wolfe hoists the Super Bowl trophy on the steps of the City and County Building during the Denver Broncos Super Bowl championship celebration and parade on February 9, 2016

Wolfe, who once criticized his NFL colleagues for kneeling during the national anthem to protest racist police brutality, implored the crowd in Aurora on Friday to vote against the ban.

“And don’t let them confuse you,” Wolfe continued, without specifying who he was talking about. ‘There are many more statements on it, such as 127 with a mountain lion [hunting] prohibit. Make sure you vote ‘no’ on that, please.”

Wolfe ended his message by sharing his love for the Centennial State, his country and Trump.

“I love you Colorado,” he told the cheering crowd. ‘This is my home. I raise my family here. And I told you, I’m digging my feet in. My heels are dug in. The line has been drawn. God bless Colorado, God bless America, and God bless Donald J. Trump.”

A product of the University of Cincinnati, Wolfe was a regular starter for nine NFL seasons, most of which were spent in Denver. He was a key member of the 2016-2017 Broncos and defeated the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl 50.

Supporters of former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump cheer him on during a campaign rally at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center in Aurora

Supporters of former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump cheer him on during a campaign rally at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center in Aurora

Trump took a detour from the battlegrounds on Friday to visit the Denver suburb that has been at the center of Republican criticism of the Joe Biden regime. His rally in Aurora marked the first time before the November election that either presidential campaign visited Colorado, which reliably votes Democratic statewide.

The Republican candidate has long promised to organize the largest deportation operation in US history and has made immigration the core of his political persona since the day he launched his first campaign in 2015. In recent months, Trump has identified specific smaller communities that are experiencing a large influx of migrants, with local tensions flaring over resources and some longtime residents wary of sudden demographic changes.

Aurora came into the spotlight in August when a video circulated showing armed men walking through an apartment building where Venezuelan migrants lived. Trump has extensively claimed that Venezuelan gangs are taking over buildings, even though authorities say this was a single block from the suburb near Denver and that the area is safe again.

Ignoring these denials from local authorities, Trump painted a picture of apartment complexes overrun by “barbaric criminals” and streets unsafe for travel, calling President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival, the blamed.

“They are ruining your state,” Trump said of the Democrats in the White House.

“No one who inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris inflicted on this community can ever become President of the United States,” Trump added.

The Republican presidential candidate, former US President Donald Trump, walks onto the stage

The Republican presidential candidate, former US President Donald Trump, walks onto the stage

Trump often used dehumanizing language, referring to his political rivals as “scum” who are destroying “the fabric of your culture” and to migrants as “animals” who have “invaded and conquered” Aurora. The city has been “contaminated by Venezuela,” he said.

“We need to clean up our country,” Trump said. And he repeated the first controversy of his career in politics when he launched his 2016 campaign by saying migrants are rapists and bring drugs and crime.

“I got a lot of flak for saying it, but I was right,” Trump said Friday, repeating the false claim that other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions and dumping their worst criminals in the United States.

To thunderous applause, he called for the death penalty “for any migrant who kills an American citizen or law enforcement officer.”

Trump announced that as president he would launch “Operation Aurora” to focus on the deportation of members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, or TDA. The violent gang has its origins for more than a decade in a notoriously lawless prison with hardened criminals.

Trump also reiterated his pledge to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any noncitizen who comes from a country with which the US is at war.

In July, the Biden administration sanctioned the gang and offered $12 million in rewards for the arrest of three leaders.