A boisterous New York City audience gave former President Donald Trump a reprieve he needed on Tuesday from the onslaught of Democratic prosecutions. As he visited a Hamilton Heights bodega, fans greeted him with a loud chant of “four more years!”
In deep-blue New York, this is far from what Democrats expect and must have rang alarm bells for the left.
Trump’s visit was to show his support for bodega worker Jose Alba, who encountered a frightening situation in July 2022. An ex-con, Austin Simon, leapt over the store counter with the clear intent to rob the establishment.
But Alba was armed with a knife and defended himself from the attack, ultimately killing Simon.
It should have been an open-and-shut case of self-defense, but that was before radical progressive District Attorney Alvin Bragg became involved. Suddenly the immigrant clerk was charged with murder.
This of course is the same Alvin Bragg who is leading the latest persecution of the former president.
Four more years! Harlem loves Trump! pic.twitter.com/rTA7lLqL30
— @amuse (@amuse) April 17, 2024
Murder charges were eventually dropped, but Alba was so traumatized he returned to his native Dominican Republic.
Trump noted this egregious injustice as small Harlem children shouted “we love you.” The audience broke into an impromptu rendition of the Star Spangled Banner as the former president declared, “You know what we’re going to be doing, right? We’re going to be saving America.”
The former president’s campaign is spotlighting what he strongly believes is New York City’s soft on crime issue. Trump recently appeared at the wake of slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller and spoke with the grieving family about the issue of recidivism.
Diller was allegedly killed by a repeat offender with a very lengthy rap sheet.
While at the bodega, Trump addressed Bragg and the problem of rampant crime head-on. “Number one,” he declared, “we have to stop crime. We have to let police do their job, they have to be given back their authority.”
Trump was a long-time resident of the nation’s largest city before relocating to Florida. He said he still loves the troubled metropolis but that it has “gotten so bad in the last three, four years.”
The former president apparently enjoyed taking a break from his latest trial to shake hands near his former home. “It makes me campaign locally, and that’s okay. We’re doing better now than we’ve ever done, so I think it’s having a reverse effect.”
And it would be understandable if the Republican candidate ignored deep-blue cities such as New York, but Trump refused to give in. He said his run for the White House is making a “big play” for its vote and that of other metro areas.
