Controversial tour began in Batavia amid protests

BATAVIA, N.Y. – The Reawaken America Tour continues Saturday in Batavia. It was originally set to be held in Rochester, but sparked a lot of controversy.

Hundreds of people were out at Cornerstone Church for the tour. There were a number of high profile conservative speakers taking part, one of them being Eric Trump.

Protesters who were out at the event argued that it sparked division and hate.

“It’s nice to be out with other like-minded people who care about our country and care about family, it’s not about color it’s about unity and love which this country is founded on,” Greg & Diane Hydock told us, who were at the event.

The event brought out protesters as well, like Lauren Berger.

“Speakers coming here advocate for physical violence, rhetoric that aims to amp people up that they should be ready for war,” Berger said.

The tour was originally supposed to be in Rochester, but an online petition was made and gained enough traction to move it to Batavia.

“A lot of folks had been resisting the event since it was supposed to be in Rochester, telling the armory not to give these people a platform for their hateful ideology,” Berger added.

But, hundreds of people were out to listen to the speakers. One of those speakers, Eric Trump. Here is a little of what he had to say on stage about the FBI raid inside his fathers’ Mar A Lago home. One of the documents recovered Friday was grant of clemency for Trump ally, Roger Stone, who also spoke at the event.

“There’s a war in this country and that’s the weaponization of government for their own purposes this comes back to the FBI raid there is no system that they haven’t weaponized in this nation,” Eric Trump said.

The pastor of cornerstone church says he got a letter from New York State General Letitia James that said the conservative tour could inspire quote “Extremist or racially motivated violence.”

The pastor says he felt “Bullied” by the government.

The attorney general’s office released a statement calling the event “Nothing but a traveling carnival of hate speech, wild conspiracy theories and attacks on our democratic process.”