By james art Former President Donald Trump’s planned rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday is raising alarm among some New York politicians, even though officials say it falls under the city’s standard operating procedure for managing special events.
The ticketed event is free and scheduled to start at 5pm on Sunday, although doors open at noon.
Mayor Eric Adams’ office has reached out to the NYPD for comment on preparations for the rally. A department spokesman said police would deploy a range of resources and work with Garden staff on any specific security needs, but declined to say what those might be. The NYPD said there are currently no identified threats related to the event.
As of Friday evening, police had not said whether they expected road closures or protests around the rally.
MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said the agency is prepared to handle any crowds on public transit.
“This is New York. There are special events all over the region all the time,” he said in a statement, pointing to similar large-scale events like the World Series at Yankee Stadium and upstate tourism. “When there are events at Madison Square Garden, we provide enough transportation so people can leave their cars at home.”
Some New York politicians, however, drew more sinister comparisons, saying the Garden’s decision to allow Trump to hold a rally there was “disastrous” and even reminiscent of a 1939 Nazi event held at the arena by the German American Bund. a Manhattan-based group that supported Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe before disbanding a few years later.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cited the 1939 rally during an interview with CNN this week, saying Trump was effectively “re-enacting” the event. The Trump campaign responded by calling her comment hypocritical after Bill Clinton accepted his presidential nomination there in 1992.
Garden officials referred the Trump campaign for comment, which did not immediately respond to inquiries.
According to NPR’s “Code Switch” podcast, about 20,000 people attended the Bund rally, while thousands of protesters demonstrated outside the arena. Filmmaker Marshall Curry, who made a short documentary about that rally, said Trump was coming to New York the week before Election Day to stir up controversy.
“He loves and hates New York, and he wants to show that even though most New Yorkers don’t like him and don’t want him here, he can come back and be cheered again,” Curry said.
He said he made the documentary to show how Americans are not immune to the lure of demagogues, and pointed to a moment in the film where a young boy is seen on stage dancing and cheering as a protester is beaten by rally participants.
Trump characterized his planned event at Madison Square Garden as “a play for New York, [which] it hasn’t been done in a long time,” at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.
A New York Times Sienna poll released Saturday showed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump 66 percent to 27 percent among registered voters in New York. The last Republican presidential candidate to win New York state was former President Ronald Reagan, who received nearly 54% of the ballot in 1984.