Trump holds first rally since alleged assassination attempt

Ed Pilkington

Donald Trump On Wednesday evening, he held his first rally since becoming the target of an assassination attempt for the second time in a matter of months. At a sports arena outside New York City, he told supporters that “these encounters with death” had only toughened him up.

“God gave me life. It must have been God, not once, but twice,” Trump said to loud cheers from the enthusiastic crowd.

The former president brought his usual smorgasbord of lies, exaggerations and dark and racist rants to Nassau Coliseum in the Long Island suburbs, just seven miles from the New York City border. It was a daring choice of venue, considering the election is just 48 days away and New York is not on either major party’s priority list.

The state is reliably Democratic; the last time a Republican presidential candidate was elected was in 1984 when Ronald Reagan was re-elected. Even Nassau County, where the arena is located, voted for Joe Biden in 2020 with 54%, while Trump was elected with 45%. And recent polls in New York State show Kamala Harris comfortably ahead by double digits.

But Trump clearly had a method behind his madness. Long Island, the leafy suburbs that extend east of the city, have moved to the right in recent years and become a kind of incubator for the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement.

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