NEW YORK (AP) — Recent from a Manhattan courtroom, Donald Trump visited a New York bodega the place a person was stabbed to demise, a stark pivot for the previous president as he juggles being a felony defendant and the Republican challenger intent on blaming President Joe Biden for crime.
Trump stopped by Sanaa Handy Retailer, a tiny bodega that sells chips, sodas and different snacks. Trump aides stated the previous president and presumptive GOP nominee selected the shop as a result of it has been the positioning of a violent assault on an worker, a case that resulted in public criticism for the district lawyer now prosecuting him.
The go to was Trump’s first marketing campaign look since his felony hush cash trial started, making the presumptive GOP nominee the primary former president in U.S. historical past to face felony trial.
Trump can be confined to the courtroom on most days, dramatically limiting his actions and his capability to marketing campaign, fundraise and make calls, versus Biden, who campaigned Tuesday in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state. Trump aides have answered by planning rallies and different political occasions on weekends and Wednesdays, the one weekday when court docket will not be speculated to be in session. Plans additionally embrace extra native appearances Trump could make after court docket recesses every day.
For months, Trump has assailed Democratic-run cities as crime-ridden and overrun with migrants who’ve crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, whilst violent crime has fallen within the U.S. Together with his native marketing campaign cease in Harlem, Trump blended that acquainted, if typically exaggerated, message together with his promise to make a severe play at profitable his native state regardless of its closely Democratic lean.
“They need legislation and order … each week they’re being robbed,” Trump stated of companies in New York, as he tried to match his prosecution with what occurs on New York streets. “You recognize the place the crime is? It’s within the bodegas.”
Opposite to Trump’s rhetoric, FBI statistics present total violent crime dropped nationally in 2023 after COVID-era spikes that started in 2020, when Trump was president. Crime additionally has fallen in New York Metropolis because the pandemic peaks.
Nonetheless, in July 2022, Jose Alba, a clerk on the retailer Trump visited in Hamilton Heights, a closely Hispanic part of Harlem, was attacked by 35-year-old Austin Simon. The ensuing altercation, captured on surveillance video, ended with Alba fatally stabbing Simon. Alba, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was arrested and charged with homicide however the Manhattan district lawyer dropped the fees inside weeks, saying they might not show Alba had not acted in self-defense.
Earlier than his arrival, Trump’s marketing campaign distributed supplies to journalists criticizing Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg for his dealing with of the stabbing case, together with the weeks Alba spent jailed at Rikers Island. Bragg oversees the workplace now prosecuting Trump.
Bragg’s workplace responded Tuesday after information of Trump’s plans emerged.
Simon’s demise and Alba’s case had been “resolved practically two years in the past, and the fees had been dismissed after an intensive investigation,” the assertion stated. “D.A. Bragg’s prime precedence stays combating violent crime and the workplace has labored hand in hand with the NYPD to drive down total crime in Manhattan.”
Bragg’s workplace cited statistics displaying double-digit drops in homicides and shootings in Manhattan during the last two years.
Trump’s marketing campaign additionally billed the comfort retailer cease as a venue to spotlight rising shopper costs throughout Biden’s presidency. Trump passed over these speaking factors, although, focusing as a substitute on his depictions of New York crime and asserting that the judicial system is letting criminals go free.
“They don’t decide them up — they go after Trump,” he stated.
The previous president’s effort in Harlem affirms his intentions to marketing campaign in his residence state, though New York stays overwhelmingly Democratic. In 2020, Biden garnered greater than 60% of the vote within the state and ran up even wider margins in New York Metropolis. Trump insists he can win New York in November anyway, and he has mused about holding rallies within the South Bronx and Queens, the place the previous president was born and grew up, and even Madison Sq. Backyard.
“I’ll hire Madison Sq. Backyard,” he stated in an interview with Breitbart Information. “That’s the stomach of the beast, proper?”
That may be a prohibitively costly proposition, notably as his marketing campaign has labored to save lots of money because it confronts a fundraising hole with Biden.
“We’re going to make a heavy play for New York,” Trump stated Tuesday, a part of his promise to place extra states in play.
As a minimum, Trump, lengthy a well-known determine for New Yorkers, confirmed that he can nonetheless flip heads within the metropolis.
All through the afternoon, the crowds across the bodega grew half a dozen deep as phrase of Trump’s impending go to unfold. Barricades had been arrange alongside Broadway, between 139th and a hundred and fortieth Streets, upfront of Trump’s look. The patio of the Mexican restaurant subsequent door was full of onlookers, and employees from a hair salon on the opposite facet gathered by their open door.
“Papito Trump is coming. Yeah!” stated one passerby forward of the previous president’s arrival.
As Trump arrived, kids climbed scaffolding round close by buildings to get a greater view. Trump shook palms with individuals standing behind police barricades earlier than getting into the bodega, the place Plexiglas separates prospects from the money register.
“I like this metropolis,” Trump informed reporters after rising from the shop. “We’re going to straighten New York out.”
Trump has argued that the continued inflow of migrants to town, the place he grew his actual property empire and have become a tabloid fixture, has made New Yorkers extra keen to vote for him since his 2020 loss to Biden. The town has struggled to deal with the brand new arrivals, placing many up in metropolis lodges.
“I believe we now have an opportunity. New York has modified rather a lot within the final two years,” he lately informed Fox Information host Maria Bartiromo. “The individuals of New York are indignant. Folks that might have by no means voted for me as a result of I’m a Republican … I believe they’re going to vote for me.”
He doubled down on that take Tuesday, claiming that migrants “are coming from jails and prisons and psychological establishments,” though there is no such thing as a proof to assist that declare — harking back to his 2015 speech to launch his first presidential marketing campaign.
Trump’s prospects will rely on voters like Lesandra Carrion, a 47-year-old who lives within the neighborhood and got here out to see the previous president when she heard he may be visiting.
She stated she doesn’t agree with all the things Trump says or does however declared that “he speaks the reality.” Carrion cited the rising migrant inhabitants and strained metropolis sources. “I believe that he’ll make a distinction,” she stated of Trump.
As for his troubles on the courthouse on the south finish of Manhattan, Carrion was dismissive. “He’s going to beat that,” she stated. “All of us make errors on the finish of the day. However he’s the reality and light-weight. I really feel that God is in him.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a prime Trump ally, predicted Monday that Trump will “make the most effective out of this” New York trial. “Democrats in New York and the decide and everybody,” she stated, “they’re actually going to remorse it.”
Not everybody was on board Tuesday, although.
Steven Kopstein, a 63-year-old neighborhood resident, expressed disgust at Trump’s go to and infrequently jeered at Trump supporters as he walked via the gang together with his canine.
“You’re not welcome right here,” Kopstein stated of Trump, calling it ironic for the previous president to rail in opposition to crime instantly after spending all day at a defendant’s desk. “He’s executed a lot to harm immigrants and migrants and this neighborhood’s filled with them. It’s loopy to me that these individuals would assist him. I simply don’t perceive it.”
___ Barrow reported from Atlanta. Related Press author Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed.