Standing and surveying the crowd Thursday in a Bronx park a few miles from the fairly austere Manhattan courtroom where he has spent much of the past five weeks as a criminal defendant, former President Donald J. Trump acknowledged he was worried about the reception he would receive at his first rally in New York state in eight years, and his first in the borough.
Ahead of him was a more diverse crowd than is typically seen at his rallies: Many black and Hispanic voters wore bright red “Make America Great Again” hats and other Trump-themed apparel rarely seen in deep blue New York City. Many more stood outside, waiting to go through security.
“I woke up and I thought, ‘Is this going to be hostile or is this going to be friendly?'” Trump said. “It was much more than friendly. It was a love fest.”
As is often the case with Trump speeches, the truth was a bit more complicated. As he spoke, more than 100 protesters demonstrated outside the fenced-in area of Crotona Park where he held his rally. One elected official after another denounced his visit to New York. And his claim that he would win New York in November’s election, while at least judging by recent polls and perhaps less laughable than it once was, conveniently ignored the crushing losses he suffered in the state in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
But as the heated discussion raged outside the rally, Trump, occasionally veering into lengthy New York-focused reminiscences that his supporters couldn’t understand, seemed to relish the chance to make a hometown appearance, attract media attention and know that New Yorkers will listen to him, whether they like it or not.
Throughout the rally, Trump, one of New York’s most prominent natives who officially made Florida his home in 2019, embraced the opportunity to show his support in the city he left behind, asserting that he still loves Florida even as he denounced it for being in turmoil.
“New York was the place to come to make it. If you wanted to make it, you had to be in New York,” he said, “but unfortunately the city is now in decline.”
His remarks largely followed a familiar pattern: slamming the Biden administration and explicitly courting black and Latino voters. He lamented the surge in migrants crossing the southern border and criticized President Biden’s economic policies for disproportionately hurting people of color, whose support he has been eager to garner from the Democratic Party.
“African-Americans are being slaughtered. Hispanic-Americans are being slaughtered,” he said.
He also argued that the influx of immigrants causing a crisis in New York is disproportionately hitting “black and Hispanic residents who are losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing everything they have to lose.”
A staple of Trump’s campaign rallies, his lengthy diatribes against those crossing the border illegally and his pledge to launch the largest “deportation operation” in U.S. history were met with cheers.
Many in the crowd chanted, unprompted, “Build the wall” – a reference to Trump’s efforts to build a wall on the southern border during his presidency – followed by chants of “Send them back.”
They don’t seem to dispute his broad, evidence-free assertion that those coming across the border are psychopaths trying to invade the United States.
“They want to attack us from the inside,” Trump said. “I think they’re building up an army.”
The positive response to these anti-immigrant messages has been particularly striking in New York, a sanctuary city that has built a reputation as a beacon for immigrants over decades.
Some in the crowd identified themselves as immigrants but quickly made it clear that they had crossed the border legally and would not accept anyone who had not.
“I understand this country is built on immigrants,” said Indiana Mitchell, 47, who said she was from the Dominican Republic, “but I came to this country the right way. I didn’t come in through the backyard, I came in through the front door.”
Trump frequently discusses how the migrant crisis is unfolding in New York during rallies in battleground states, but for many of his supporters, the crisis remains an abstract concept.
But those at the Bronx rally said they have seen firsthand the impact the migrant surge has had on their communities, straining city budgets as the city provides housing and other social services.
Rafael Brito, a Queens resident who immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic, said he believes the immigration crisis is worsening crime and making it harder for people in his neighborhood to get the services they need.
“The whole neighborhood has changed,” said Brito, 51.
Protesters outside the rally said they felt compelled to come to the park to voice their opposition to Trump’s views.
Melvin Howard, 65, a mechanic who lives near Crotona Park, said he wanted to make it clear that he disagrees with the rallies taking place in his neighborhood and the views of those who attend them.
“These people don’t belong in the South Bronx,” he said, referring to the large number of white people in the crowd in a district that is less than 10 percent white. “They’re here to steal black votes. I don’t know any of them.”
As protesters began their protests, pro-Trump and anti-Trump protesters began yelling insults at each other from across the street, creating a tense moment, and the NYPD began setting up metal barricades in the road to separate the two groups.
The Bronx remains one of the most Democratic counties in the country, and President Biden won the borough with 68 percent of the vote in 2020, an improvement over Trump’s 2016 performance, when he lost by 79 percentage points.
But Trump downplayed past results. “Don’t think that just because you live in a Democratic city, you’re OK,” he said. “You live in a Democratic city, but it’s quickly becoming Republican.”
Trump’s visit to the city where he has spent much of his life appeared to provoke a more thoughtful response than has characterized his speeches in battleground states.
He spent a lot of time celebrating his history with New York, talking about refurbishing the ice skating rink in Central Park and managing the Bronx’s public golf courses.
And he included life lessons in his speech.
Trump spoke at length of admiration for his father, a real estate developer who loved to work days off, including Sundays, and for William Levitt, the homebuilder who built Levittowns on Long Island and in other states, but he said Levitt got out of business too early and wasn’t able to return years later when he would have liked.
Trump said the reason was that momentum had been squandered.
“You’ve got to keep moving forward,” Trump said, “and when your time comes, you’ve got to know that it’s your time.”
Jeffrey C. Mays Contributed report.
