At a Trump Rally in the Bronx, Chants of ‘Build the Wall’
Speaking to a more diverse crowd than his events usually draw, Donald Trump made a series of pledges to New Yorkers and railed against President Biden and the migrant crisis.
Miles from the rather somber Manhattan courtroom where he has spent much of the past five weeks as a criminal defendant, former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday stood at a park in the Bronx, surveyed the crowd and acknowledged he had been concerned over how he might be greeted at his first rally in New York State in eight years, and his first ever in the borough.
In front of him was a more diverse crowd than is typical of his rallies, with many Black and Hispanic voters sporting bright red “Make America Great Again” hats and other Trump-themed apparel ordinarily scarce in deep-blue New York City. Still more people stood outside, waiting to get past security.
“I woke up, I said, ‘I wonder, will it be hostile or will it be friendly?’” Mr. Trump said. “It was beyond friendly. It was a love fest.”
As is often the case during Mr. Trump's speeches, the truth was a bit more complex. As he spoke, more than 100 protesters demonstrated outside the fenced-off area of Crotona Park where he had staged the rally. A wave of elected officials denounced his visit to the city. And his insistence that he would carry New York in November — though perhaps not as laughable as it once might have sounded, judging from at least one
recent poll — conveniently disregarded the thumping he took in the state in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
But as heated arguments took place outside his rally, Mr. Trump, who veered occasionally into lengthy New York-focused reminiscences that were lost on his supporters, seemed to relish the chance to appear in his hometown, seize media attention and know that New Yorkers would hear what he had to say, like it or not, one way or the other.
Throughout the rally, Mr. Trump, one of New York’s most famous native sons, who formally made Florida his home in 2019, embraced the chance to demonstrate his support in the city he left behind — and which he swore he still loved, even as he decried it as descending into chaos.
“New York was where you came to make it big. You want to make it big, you had to be in New York,” he said. “But sadly, this is now a city in decline.”
His remarks largely followed familiar patterns as he railed against the Biden administration and made explicit overtures to Black and Latino voters. He lamented the surge of migrants across the southern border and criticized President Biden’s economic policies as disproportionately hurting people of color, whose support he is eager to win from Democrats.
“African Americans are getting slaughtered. Hispanic Americans are getting slaughtered,” he said.
He also insisted that the migrant influx, which has prompted a crisis in New York, was disproportionately hurting “our Black population and our Hispanic population, who are losing their jobs, losing their housing, losing everything they can lose.”
Mr. Trump’s screeds against those crossing the border illegally and his vow to conduct the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history — both staples of his campaign rallies — were met with cheers.
Unprompted, many in the crowd responded by chanting “Build the wall,” a reference to Mr. Trump’s effort during his presidency to build a wall on the southern border, and then, later, “Send them back.”
Speaking to a more diverse crowd than his events usually draw, Donald Trump made a series of pledges to New Yorkers and railed against President Biden and the migrant crisis.
www.nytimes.com
