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“Breaking news,” insisted an MSNBC banner Sunday night. “Trump’s MSG rally comes 85 years after pro-Nazi rally at famed arena.” The far-left network’s breathless report included chilling black-and-white footage of the German-American Bund’s infamous National Socialist gathering, complete with swastika ribbons and stiff-arm salutes .
Referring to Trump’s packed event at Madison Square Garden, MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart said, “But this jamboree that’s happening right now, you see it there on your screen in this place, is particularly chilling because in 1939 more of 20,000 supporters of a different fascist leader, Adolf Hitler, packed the Garden for a so-called pro-American rally – a rally in which speakers spouted anti-Semitic rhetoric from a stage draped with Nazi flags. When a Jewish protester rushed to the scene, Capehart explained, American stormtroopers tore off his clothes and beat him as he cradled his head in his hands.
Scary! But much more than that, it’s disgusting, vile garbage. And – as luck would have it – it’s also impressively inaccurate.
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The Nazi rally took place at the old Madison Square Garden at 8th Avenue and West 49th Street, home of today’s Worldwide Plaza office and retail complex. Trump and his supporters were not “in that place” as the MSNBC misinformation claimed.
Former President Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump during a campaign event at Madison Square Garden in New York, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In fact, Trump’s extravaganza was a mile south, at 8th Avenue and West 33rd Street, in a venue that began hosting events in 1968 — the same year the old MSG was demolished and turned into a parking lot. Not only was the MAGA nation not on the same desecrated ground as that pre-WWII Hitlerfest. The facility in question has not even existed for 56 years.
The entire premise of MSNBC’s hyperventilation — as well as that of Hillary Clinton and other Trump haters — collapsed like an arena hit by a wrecking ball. Too bad these Trumpophobes didn’t spend five minutes in the Google machine to learn about the three incarnations of MSG, the first two of which were destroyed. Perhaps Trump’s drowning in archival footage of swastika flags is too important to engage in high school-level fact-checking.
The whole big lie of the Nuremberg Rally on the Hudson suffers from more than just a fatally flawed timeline.
The Trump event I was pleased and proud to attend bore no resemblance to the 1939 event that makes the left cringe with fear.
Instead of fierce American stormtroopers, I saw thousands of calm, cheerful men, women and children lined up from the middle of West 33rd Street and wrapping north and then east around 1 Penn Plaza – all the way to the middle of West 34th Street. They peacefully and patriotically waited in the cool autumn breeze to enter MSG.
Once inside – as far as I could tell – not a single Jew was pulled off the stage and beaten into submission. Instead, Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Trump friend and golf partner Steve Witkoff and Cantor Fitzgerald chief Howard Lutnick were welcomed to the stage. These Jewish gentlemen offered warm and passionate words of support for Trump.
The crowd – which filled every row, right up to the upper aisle behind the podium – cheered and applauded these speakers with abundant enthusiasm. Miller, Witkoff and Lutnick were allowed to leave the scene. All three were fully clothed and none showed signs of physical assault or trauma.
In an even more dramatic departure from Nazism, Congressman Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and Death Row Records co-founder Michael “Harry O” Harris addressed the masses wearing red hats. These two black men also endorsed Trump, much to the immense satisfaction of the mega-MAGA faithful.
Attendees hold signs during a campaign event with former President Donald Trump, not pictured, at Madison Square Garden in New York, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Photo: Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The occasion also featured the characteristically impassioned but eloquent words of former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a Hindu who clearly lacked blond hair and blue eyes. Ramaswamy (like Miller) electrified the audience with his stirring advocacy of Trump and his policies.
The youngest major presidential candidate in memory also said that gay Americans are welcome in the MAGA tent as long as they agree with Trump and his followers that men and boys have no place in sports for women and girls, and that gender transition should be restricted to adults. “Gay marriage is fine, but hands off the kids!” is a MAGA tenet that enjoys widespread appeal across the ideological spectrum.
The event looked like a one-day Republican National Convention. The excitement, energy and camaraderie brought to mind one of those four-year-old nomination affairs. The speakers were also of this caliber. They included former congresswoman and recent GOP convert Tulsi Gabbard, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Hulk Hogan and Eric and Lara Trump, among others.
The GOP nominee’s other son was horrified at what inflation had done to his family’s recent fast-food tab. “If Donald Trump Jr. has sticker shock at McDonald’s, we have a serious problem in our country.”
The occasion had its surreal qualities, noted political commentator Tucker Carlson. “Just another day after Bobby Kennedy Jr. at a Donald Trump rally in Madison Square Garden… Yes, that’s totally normal!”
Amid speeches and excerpts from classic rock tunes like “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Sweet Child of Mine,” the campaign featured a slew of new slogans on screens and in videos and hallway displays. Many are four words long, like Make America Great Again. They are as simple as cavemen, but direct, powerful, compelling and masculine:
- “Better with Trump”
- “Dream Big Again”
- “No Overtime Tax”
- “Make America Strong Again”
And my favorite:
Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a campaign rally for former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27, 2024. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
Melania Trump made a surprise appearance to introduce her husband. When Donald J. As Trump finally took the stage to a standing ovation, Lee Greenwood serenaded the once-and-maybe-future First Couple with a live rendition of “I’m Proud to Be an American.”
Trump himself spoke positively and optimistically about November 5th as “Liberation Day” and promised a tantalizing combination of big tax cuts, deregulation, energy liberalization, Elon Musk and Howard Lutnick leading a massive effort to cut the federal budget, tariffs and Golden Rule trade policy (regarding international trade, do unto other nations as they do unto us). I call this supply-side protectionism. I like the first part more than the second. If anyone can merge these two seemingly contradictory approaches, it should be Donald J. Trump.
Instead of the thousand-year Reich that Hitler promised Germany, Trump speaks warmly of a “new golden age.”
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The occasion had its surreal qualities, noted political commentator Tucker Carlson. “Just another day after Bobby Kennedy Jr. at a Donald Trump rally in Madison Square Garden… Yes, that’s totally normal!”
One sour note of the event was comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s rant about an island made of trash floating in the middle of the ocean: Puerto Rico. He was the first speaker of the day and appeared when MSG was half full. While the rest of his set was entertaining, this line drew an appropriate few laughs and instead something between silence and groans. Trump and his campaign distanced themselves from those remarks.
It’s a shame that Hinchcliffe is a harmful distraction from an otherwise upbeat and extraordinary event in modern politics. And Adolf Hitler would have hated all that.
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