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Former President Donald Trump was met with loud boos as he arrived at Williams-Brice Stadium in South Carolina on Saturday ahead of the Palmetto Bowl.

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential primary, was in Columbia to watch the Palmetto Bowl college football game between the University of South Carolina’s Gamecocks and Clemson University’s Tigers.

The former president remains a popular figure in South Carolina, a state where he beat President Joe Biden by 12 points in 2020. South Carolina is a key early voting state, and Trump has maintained a commanding lead in polls over his GOP rivals, including former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Haley, a Clemson alumna and trustee who was twice elected the state’s governor, did not attend the annual rivalry football game, according to local media reports.

The former president was invited to watch the football game at the request of Governor Henry McMaster, who became Haley’s successor after Trump named her U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2017.

Trump faced a mix of boos and some cheers while at the bowl game, according to videos posted on social media.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump waves to the crowd while on the field during halftime in the Palmetto Bowl between Clemson and South Carolina at Williams-Brice Stadium on November 25, 2023, in Columbia, South Carolina. Trump faced boos while at the game, videos on social media show.
Sean Rayford/Getty

The MAGA leader was greeted with audible boos as his black SUV was arriving at Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday, according to video clips shared on X, formerly Twitter. In a minute-long clip, posted by Beth Hoole, a director for local station WHNS, the crowd’s jeers can be heard roughly 10 seconds in.

Hoole’s video was reshared on X by 11Alive journalist Cody Alcorn, who called it an “explicit welcome.”

“You can hear the boo’s and explicit welcome Trump received as his SUV arrived at Williams-Brice for the Palmetto Bowl,” Alcorn said in the post.

Despite a smattering of boos, the crowd wasn’t entirely hostile as chants of “We Want Trump” and “USA” rang out whenever the former president was shown on the jumbotron.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, told a Newsweek editor in an email to “step away from your computer on a Saturday night and come to an event sometime to experience the electric Trump effect.”

“South Carolina loves President Trump,” Cheung said. “Just take a look at all the videos circulating social media of giving him a warm and rousing welcome to the Palmetto Bowl.”

Simon Ateba, Chief White House Correspondent at Today News Africa, shared a video on X showing the crowd inside the stadium cheering and clapping for the former president.

“EXPLOSIVE: Massive pro-Trump crowd as Trump arrives in Nikki Haley’s state of South Carolina,” Ateba said in the X post. “Multiple indictments and MSM have not changed the minds of the voters. WATCH.”

Trump’s stop in South Carolina comes amid potential key updates involving his criminal and civil trials that could tarnish his 2024 presidential campaign.

A reporter for local outlet The Post and Courier, Caitlin Byrd, shared a clip of Trump as he took the field with McMaster at halftime.

“Additional video from AP’s Meg Kinnard captures the mix of cheers and boos when Trump + McMaster walked onto the field tonight for a quick appearance during halftime of the USC-Clemson football game,” Byrd posted. “The boos are audible, as is someone shouting, ‘We love you!'”