The New Mexico cowboys who recently rode through downtown Washington, DC, to show their support for President Donald Trump and his plan for a border wall did not get to meet the commander-in-chief. However, Couy Griffin subsequently got a phone call from the White House and shared the conversation with Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily.

Marlow spoke with Griffin live at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.

“We just wanted to go out simply and solely as a sign of support for our president — let the president know we had his back,” said Griffin, who along with about a dozen other cowboys, rode from Cumberland, Maryland, along the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal to Arlington Cemetery, where they got a police escort around the nation’s capital.

Breitbart News featured a story and videos about the ride, which got national coverage from the media and the ear of the president, who called Griffin on his cell phone.

“The first thing I told the president is, I told him, I said, ‘Sir, I know there are lots around you that are armchair quarterbacking you,’” Griffin said. “‘I know that everybody’s a critic of everything you do, and many are telling you that you should be doing things differently, but I would like to speak on behalf of myself and millions of others who think just like me — keep doing exactly what you’re doing because you’re doing a great job.’”

Griffin called Trump “the people’s president.”

“‘I truly do believe that by the time that you’re done with your second term,’ I said, ‘I think Ronald Reagan will be standing in your shadow,’” Griffin said he told Trump.

Griffin told Breitbart News Daily that border security is needed on the southern border more than ever, and illegal immigration poses new threats to U.S. citizens, including diseases coming from countries that have not eradicated them.

When asked what message he would send to politicians, Griffin said they should “follow the lead of the president.”

“If more of our political leaders would put America first instead of their partisan politics, our country would be much greater,” Griffin said.

Griffin also said he and his cowboy buddies accepted an invitation to visit the White House sometime this summer when they will take another ride, but this time, to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue where they will meet Trump and present him with a beaver-skin cowboy hat made especially for him.

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