In the final week of his campaign, former President Donald Trump will cross off a campaign bucket-list item on Sunday: a rally in the iconic Madison Square Garden. The avid Broadway enthusiast will deliver a matinee performance, complete with musical guests and a host of Republican allies.
It’s a moment Trump has long said he wanted to have in the state where he mounted a business empire and then faced criminal and civil trials, becoming a convicted felon.
Trump says he wants to ‘make New York great again’
“I think it’ll be a great time, and it’s going to be really a celebration of the whole thing, you know, because it’s coming to an end a few days after that. The campaigning; I won’t campaign anymore. Then I’ll be campaigning to make America great,” Trump said about the upcoming Madison Square Garden rally during a local radio interview with Cats & Cosby on Thursday.
The day before the much-anticipated rally, Trump called into a “tele-rally” hosted by the New York Republican Party, painting New York City as a deteriorating city and again making a long-shot push to win the Democratic stronghold.
Trump railed against the influx of the migrant population in New York and highlighted crime rates, while lamenting that that “rich people” are leaving the city.
“We’re going to have to do things to create an incentive for New Yorkers to stay. I mean, they’re leaving New York. … And rich people are leaving — the riches of the people are leaving. And that means taxes of hundreds of millions and millions of dollars, and we can’t let it happen,” Trump said.
The former president blamed Democratic politicians for what he called the decline of the city. However, while complaining about the homeless population and empty stores on Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue, Trump said he would work with Democrats to “turn it around” and make “New York great again.”
In this May 23, 2024 File photo, former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during his campaign rally at Crotona Park in the South Bronx in New York City.
James Devaney/GC Images via Getty Images, FILE
During his civil fraud trial, Trump decided to voluntarily attend his court hearings, splitting time between the courtroom and the campaign trail as he used his prosecutions to rally his supporters around what he argued was a weaponization of government, charges prosecutors have vehemently denied.
He made multiple smaller campaign stops during his seven-week criminal trial earlier this year, and held a rally in the Bronx and on Long Island in an attempt to court the Hispanic and Black voters that make up a majority of the area’s population.
In this May 30, 2024 File photo, former US President Donald Trump after the verdict was read at Manhattan criminal court in New York, US.
Steven Hirsch/New York Post/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE
Throughout the former president’s travels through the deep-blue Democratic state, he has long quipped he could flip New York, a state Democrats have won in the last nine elections.
In an arena format symbolizing confidence and celebrity status, Trump’s appearance will serve as his closing argument. In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris makes hers on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, ahead of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The former president, reminiscent of the last nine years campaigning for the highest office in the land, has coined the event as a “celebration of the whole thing.”
“Well, it’s New York, but it’s also sort of, it’s the end of my campaigning. When you think, I mean, I’ve done it now for nine years, we’ve had two great elections. One was better than the other,” Trump said.
Fans arrive for the game between the New York Rangers and the Florida Panthers at Madison Square Garden October 24, 2024 in New York City.
Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
On Sunday, Trump will be joined by several surrogates who have appeared with him on the campaign trail — including North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy. House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik will also be in attendance as well as several family members and donors.
Trump’s close friend and donor Steve Witkoff, who was golfing with Trump during the second attempt on his life in West Palm Beach last month, is also scheduled to speak at the rally.
Trump’s rally in New York, while not a battleground state, will provide an opportunity to capture a vast national audience given the area’s media market and location.
It’s a strategy that campaign officials have been deploying in the last stretch of Trump’s campaign, seeing benefits in visiting venues outside of battleground states to help emphasize a message.
For example on Friday, Trump visited Texas to highlight immigration, creating a campaign split screen to Harris who was rallying in Houston later in the day for an event focused on abortion rights.