One piece of audio that was buried beneath the mountain of news that came out in the first few hours following the tragic Las Vegas shooting on Oct. 1 was an apparent former neighbor of Stephen Paddock having said that Paddock was “a fan” of President Donald Trump.
A caller to Savage Nation (hosted by conservative talk show host Michael Savage) named “Rick” claimed he was a neighbor of Paddock from December 2015 to June of 2016. When asked by Savage if Paddock had ever expressed any political opinions to him, the neighbor said the following: “No sir, not a thing, I mean other than I told him … I was wearing a Trump Team shirt that said ‘Trump Team’ on it, and he was a Trump fan. But other than that, we didn’t talk about it.”
Savage, who heavily supported Trump during his campaign, followed up the comment with a laugh and said, “Don’t let that get out.”
The caller, who said he now lives in Pittsburgh, believes that Paddock was set up.
“I’m not a big conspiracy theory guy but it don’t sit right,” the caller said. “I know this guy. I’ve drank beer with this guy.
“I can tell you, 100 percent, that this is not that kind of guy. I was in [Mesquite, Nevada] working and probably saw him every other day on my way home. He used to sit in his driveway in a lawn chair, right at the edge of the garage and the driveway. And he would wave all the time when I was going by – really nice guy.
“There’s a little bar around the corner where they have poker vending machines. He’d go down there all the time and have a few beers and play that little vending slot machine.
“We drank beer together, kind of sitting there in passing … we would talk about nonsense stuff. I told him I was in the Marine corps. We’d talk about guns and all kinds of stuff. He never even told me that he owned a gun.”
