Donald Trump announced he will hold a campaign rally in the Bronx as he runs for president while facing a criminal trial in New York over hush money payments.
But the congressman who represents the district said his district won’t be fooled by the former president.
“Donald Trump announced an upcoming rally in my congressional district in the South Bronx,” Congressman Ritchie Torres wrote in X. ““The South Bronx has no greater enemy than Donald Trump.”
Torres stated that the former president has “a mission to dismantle the social safety net that Bronx families depend on for their survival.”
‘Trump is and always has been a fraud. “The South Bronx, the most Democratic area in the country, will not buy the snake oil he sells,” he wrote.
Donald Trump speaking in the Manhattan criminal court where he will be tried on Thursday, March 16.
His harsh post comes after Trump announced he would hold a rally outside New York next Thursday.
In the announcement, the Trump campaign said the former president would visit ‘hHighlight the horrendous effects that corrupt Joe Biden’s disastrous presidency has had on our economy.’
The ad also claimed as much ‘New York City and the state as a whole have been devastated by monumental increases in violent crime as a direct result of Biden and Democrats’ pro-crime policies.’
Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres says the Bronx “has no greater enemy than Donald Trump” after the former president announced a campaign event in his district on Thursday.
It noted the rise in murders from 2019 levels. Crime across the country increased as the United States faced the coronavirus pandemic.
But in New York City, some violent crimes have been trending downward after the pandemic.
Homicides decreased almost twelve percent in 2023 from 2022. Shootings also decreased from pandemic highs with a decrease of almost 25 percent from 2022 to 2023.
However, both remain above historic lows set just before the pandemic in 2017 and 2018.
Trump has taken advantage of rising crime and persistent inflation as he prepares a third run for the White House.
The former president has been in Manhattan criminal court for the better part of two months as he stands trial on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Donald Trump in the courtroom for his hush money trial on May 16. The former president faces 34 charges of falsifying business records.
Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, seen here leaving his apartment to go to court on May 16. His testimony will resume Monday.
Testimony from his former fixer Michael Cohen will resume Monday after court was skipped Friday while Trump attended his son Barron’s graduation.
Cohen is a star witness in the hush money case. Once he concludes his testimony, the prosecution is expected to drop the case.
Trump had previously said last month that he would take the stand in his own defense, but has since appeared to backtrack and it is unclear whether he would testify.
The judge has ordered both sides to be ready for closing arguments on Tuesday. It means jury deliberation and even a verdict could come as soon as this week.
Trump at a recent campaign rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, on May 11. The former president announced a campaign event in the Bronx on May 23.
Donald Trump speaking with the owner of a Harlem bodega during a campaign stop on April 16.
Trump meeting with workers at a construction site in New York City on April 25
Donald Trump after delivering pizzas to firefighters in midtown Manhattan on May 2
When Trump is not in the courtroom, he holds a series of rallies. Last weekend, he headed to Wildwood, New Jersey, for a spiteful beach rally.
He also received a celebratory welcome from construction workers during a visit last month to midtown Manhattan and delivered pizzas to FDNY firefighters in early May.
While focusing on crime, Trump also stopped by a warehouse in Harlem in mid-April, where a worker stabbed an ex-convict to death last year. During his visit, he met with the store’s two current owners as his supporters gathered outside.
Trump has been claiming he could win New York this November. But it’s a wild stretch. The last Republican to win the state in a presidential election was President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Biden beat Trump in the Empire State by double digits in 2020 with more than 60 percent of the vote to Trump’s less than 38 percent.
In the 15th Congressional District, where Trump will campaign on Thursday, Congressman Torres won with more than 82 percent of the vote in the 2022 midterm elections.
