President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks at the 2020 Council for National Policy Meeting Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, Va. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)
Donald Trump will do something most GOP candidates have been afraid to do or haven’t thought of doing in a long time; he will campaign in New York City. Perhaps he was inspired by Lee Zeldin’s nearly successful gubernatorial campaign in New York, in which Zeldin didn’t shy away from urban campaigning. Trump’s rally, according to Russell Payne in the New York Sun, will focus on crime, illegal immigrants, and inflation. Payne writes:
Congressman Ritchie Torres is slamming President Trump’s visit to his district at the south Bronx later this week, even as fans of the president are planning a raucous MAGA cruise ahead of the event.
Mr. Trump announced Monday that he would hold a rally at Crotona Park, squarely in the middle of New York’s 15th District, which is represented by Mr. Torres.
The president is likely trying to show that he is gaining support among Hispanic and Latino voters — the Bronx is about 55 percent Hispanic, according to the 2020 Census.
The rally also gives Mr. Trump an opportunity to make an extra campaign stop at a time when he is required to be at New York City for his ongoing criminal trial four days a week.
In announcing the event, Mr. Trump’s campaign said that the rally’s purpose is “tackling lawlessness head-on, ceasing the endless flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border, and reversing the detrimental effects of inflation.”
The convenience of the Bronx rally doesn’t guarantee that Mr. Trump will receive a warm welcome. Mr. Torres tells the Sun that “The South Bronx — the most Democratic area in the nation — will not buy the snake oil that he is selling.”
“Donald Trump announced an upcoming rally in my Congressional District in the South Bronx,” Mr. Torres says. “The South Bronx has no greater enemy than Donald Trump, who is on a mission to dismantle the social safety net on which Bronx families depend for their survival. Trump is and has always been a fraud.”
In an op-ed for the New York Daily News, Mr. Torres said, “Trump plans to desecrate Crotona Park in the Bronx” while House Republicans push to cut SNAP benefits.
Mr. Torres also criticized Mr. Trump and the Republican Party for their opposition to funding public housing projects, saying that the New York City Housing Authority “has been federally defunded for decades, largely at the hands of Republicans.”
Others at the New York City area are preparing for Mr. Trump’s visit to the Bronx, with the organizers at Trumpswag.com organizing a $99 “BRONX RALLY MAGA CRUISE” scheduled for Wednesday evening.
Other fans of having the president at the Bronx have taken to less boozy methods of promotion ahead of Mr. Trump’s rally. The Republican nominee to face off against Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and self proclaimed “ tip of the spear against the radical Left in America,” Tina Forte, has been promoting the event online.
Other surrogates of the former president, like the former city councilman for the 18th district, Reverend Ruben Diaz, held a rally of their own at the Bronx to celebrate the announcement.
“We are in the South Bronx. Again, we are not here to see Trump. We are here to tell the people that we are with Trump,” Mr. Diaz said at a rally Sunday.
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