During Thursday's rally in the Bronx — a district that Donald Trump lost to President Biden in 2020 by 68 points — Trump attempted to rectify his previous failure by appealing to Black and Hispanic voters, claiming in his speech that he’d win New York state in the 2024 presidential election.
“Joe Biden has a better chance winning Alabama than Donald Trump has winning New York,” David Levinthal, the editor-in-chief of Raw Story, said to CNN's Jessica Dean on a panel on Thursday, discussing the Bronx rally.
Levinthal explained why Trump tried to reason with certain voters — because in swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, gaining the votes of Black and Hispanic individuals who are “disillusioned” and “disaffected” with the Biden administration policies can make all the difference.
But how many people actually attended this rally that Trump seems to be banking on?
As is his fashion, the former president took to Truth Social to brag about numbers that may or may not be real, writing, “THIS WAS A BIG, IMPORTANT, AND EVEN STARTLING EVENT, AND YET MUCH OF THE LAMESTREAM NETWORK MEDIA REFUSED TO COVER IT . . . Gee, I wonder why???”
The truth seems to be a bit skewed from Trump’s version. A local New York evening news report by Jim Dolan on ABC7 revealed just how many, or how few, were there. Not to mention the fact that there were plenty of protesters mixed in.
“First of all, he’s a big fat bigot and he just doesn’t have any love in his heart for anyone — anyone of color, anyone who’s in the LGBTQ+ community,” one protester told Dolan. “He’s a crook, a liar, and a cheat. And he tried to make money off people. And that’s what he’s doing right now,” said a second protestor.
According to Dolan's reporting, those who were in attendance didn’t amount to a lot, judging by the b-roll aired later that evening. What's more, most individuals in the crowd were not even from the Bronx.
When Dolan featured a pro-Trump rally-goer, it turned out he was from Queens.
“Donald Trump can now say he held a rally in the South Bronx, home to immigrants and minority communities, and that it was well attended,” Dolan said. “It’s just not clear that the people who attended were from the Bronx. The campaign controlled who got in, and the campaign, of course, picked only supporters.”
