PHOENIX — President Donald Trump won’t pardon former sheriff Joe Arpaio during his visit to Arizona, the White House said Tuesday as supporters and protesters gathered near the site of Trump’s latest campaign rally.

Outside the Phoenix convention center, shouting matches and minor scuffles erupted between the two sides. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton had asked Trump to delay his political event to allow for more time of national healing.

It’s the first Trump campaign rally since a Charlottesville, Va., protest organized by white supremacists led to three deaths.

Eager to capitalize on his hard-line stance on immigration, Trump had teased the politically inflammatory possibility of pardoning Arpaio. The former Maricopa County sheriff is awaiting sentencing after his conviction in federal court for disobeying court orders to stop his immigration patrols.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump won’t discuss or take action on a pardon, even the president has said he’s considering it.

The president began his Arizona visit with a brief trip to the southern edge of the country.

While touring a Marine Corps base in Yuma that is a hub of operations for the U.S. Border Patrol, Trump inspected a drone and other border equipment on display in a hangar.

Trump shook his head as he was shown a series of everyday objects, such as a fire extinguisher, that had been refashioned to secretly transport drugs across the border.

Afterward, he spent about 20 minutes greeting service members in the grueling, 106-degree heat, signing caps with his “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan and posing for selfies on the tarmac just steps from Air Force One.

While Trump did not talk publicly about getting tough on immigration during his Yuma visit, the topic was sure to come up at the Phoenix rally — his eighth such event since taking office in January. The events are organized by his 2020 re-election campaign, which carefully screens attendees.

In the comfort of his most fervent fans, Trump often resurrects his free-wheeling 2016 campaign style, pinging insults at perceived enemies such as the media and meandering from topic to topic without a clear theme.

Vice President Mike Pence said the president will be “completely focused” on his agenda for the country.

“He’s also going to call on the Congress to get ready to come back when they arrive on Sept. 5th and go straight to work to make America safe again, make America prosperous again, and in his words, to make America great again,” Pence said in a Tuesday interview with Fox News.

The vice president traveled to Phoenix separately and bounded up the stairs of Air Force One to greet Trump on the tarmac.

Outside the convention center, police officers formed a line in the middle of a street to separate the protesters and Trump supporters.

One man using a loudspeaker said the largely Latino protesters belong in the kitchen. Trump opponents hoisted signs depicting him with devil horns and portraying “45” — he is the 45th president — as a swastika.