Trump and his friends smiled and partied at Madison Square Garden. Then they got mean

The crowd was beaming with optimism, shaking hands and embracing friends and strangers, all dressed head to toe in patriotic colors — then digested six hours of borderline racist, profanity-filled remarks and vulgar insults aimed at their political opponents.

A long list of Donald Trump’s high-profile allies at his massive Madison Square Garden rally labeled Kamala Harris “the antichrist” and “the devil” and lamented “f***ing illegals.” Tucker Carlson joked that Trump’s Democratic rival — a Black and Indian-American woman — is “the first Samoan, Malaysian, low IQ” presidential nominee.

“I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said comedian Tony Hinchliffe, who goes by the stage name Kill Tony.

The Manhattan arena, which seats roughly 19,500 people, was nearly filled to capacity on Sunday, with supporters filling the rafters and suites and lingering in hallways and stairwells. Hundreds of people who couldn’t get inside were glued to a large screen and speakers blasting his address towards the street from the steps.

A woman covered head to toe in red, white and blue sequins and “MAGA” decals wore the outfit to celebrate her 20th rally since 2020. Thousands of others wore T-shirts saying they were “voting for the felon” and “f*** Joe Biden.”

More than nine years after he descended golden escalators from his Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, and nearly five months to the day he was criminally convicted for conspiring to interfere in the 2016 election, Trump had his name in lights in one of the biggest marquees in town, sneering back at a city he claims is falling apart without him.

At his rallies, Trump routinely mentions that he is able to draw a crowd despite not playing an instrument. When he rallied on Long Island last month, he proudly mentioned that Elvis Presley once performed there.

He came back to the “city that raised him” without “embarrassment,” Tucker Carlson said on Sunday. “The stones that takes.”

While he embraces being the center of attention at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump dreams of swinging his home state. If he can turn out a crowd at a place like this, that should be proof enough that New York is no longer the Democratic stronghold their opponents have claimed it to be, the thinking goes.

Michael Zumbluskas, who is running for Congress to represent New York’s 12th district, which spans Manhattan, spoke to The Independent over the strains of Lee Greenwood singing Trump’s theme.

Trump’s rally proves Republicans “have a shot,” he said.

Trump will likely not win New York in 2024, but his presence could boost down-ballot Republicans in tighter races.

“All these major Democrats thought he was afraid to come back,” Zumbluskas said. “And this is saying, ‘no, I’m sticking it in your face, even if I don’t win New York.’”

“This doesn’t feel like second-place energy tonight,” former Republican presidential aide and Trump booster Vivek Ramaswamy said to the crowd. “Welcome to 2024. New York is a swing state.”

“The king of New York is back,” Donald Trump Jr told the crowd, “to reclaim the city that he built.”

His father headlined in a city where judges and juries have him on the hook for more than half a billion dollars, including a $350m judgment for defrauding bankers and investors, and nearly $90m for defaming a woman he was also found liable for sexually abusing.

Next month he will be sentenced for falsifying business records in connection with a hush money scheme to pay off an adult film star who threatened to derail his presidential ambitions in 2016.

The walls of Madison Square Garden are full of reminders of some of its most famous matchups and concerts, from 1971’s “Fight of the Century” to “The Dunk” in 1993. Hulk Hogan won the main event at the first Wrestlemania there in 1985.

He came back to the Garden on Sunday and ripped off his shirt, just as he did at the Republican National Convention in July.

“It’s surreal,” said Andrew Giuliani, son of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who appeared on the rally stage one day before he is due in federal court to face an order to hand over his assets to election workers he defamed.

“I think about all the times I’ve been here to watch the Knicks,” he told The Independent. “It really brought everything into this sense of New York being the center of the universe. … If we can pull off a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, in the heart of leftism, anything is possible. … And I think it’s going to reverberate across the country.”

The rally was a revival of July’s Republican National Convention, when Trump — days after an attempted assassination — received the party’s nomination, when he thought he was facing President Joe Biden.

Republicans have rejected rally comparisons to an infamous Nazi-supporting event in the Garden in 1939, or have shot down accusations of fascism in the days before Election Day.

“There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden,” Harris’s running mate Tim Walz said from Nevada on Sunday. “Don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.”

Several speakers at Trump’s rally made the comparisons themselves.

“I just got back from Israel … and they go, ‘Sid, you want to speak at this MSG thing? I go, ‘Sure. Out of character for me to speak at a Nazi rally. I was just in Israel,’” joked right-wing radio personality Sid Rosenberg. “But I took the gig.”

“I don’t see no stinking Nazis in here,” said Hogan, moments after ripping off his shirt. “I don’t see no stinking domestic terrorists in here.”

Moments after taking the stage, after his introduction from former First Lady Melania Trump, who was introduced by billionaire Elon Musk, Trump launched into a familiar message of decline and chaos that only he can fix.

“The day I take office, the migrant invasion of our country ends and the restoration of our country begins,” he said.

“Savage Venezuelan prison gangs” are “taking over apartment complexes,” said Trump, painting a false picture of life for people in Colorado. “And now they’ve even taken over Times Square.”

Outside the arena, vendors unloaded bootleg MAGA hats at two for $20. Business for one vendor in Sixth Avenue one block away wasn’t much better.

But on 8th Avenue and 34th Street, less than half a block from where a crowd listened to Trump promise the death penalty for immigrants accused of killing American citizens, a few vendors told The Independent they had success selling massive flags, including American flags with Trump’s face on them. “Can you see these anywhere else?” one vendor said.

There was one, attached to a truck parked in front of Macy’s on 34th Street.