AOC: Trump can’t deceive the Bronx with a rally

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) bemoaned former President Donald Trump‘s effort to campaign in her New York City district on Thursday.

Trump will hold the rally later Thursday, but Ocasio-Cortez suggested the crowd will be full of out-of-state supporters, as her district, which includes part of the Bronx, is not the “friendliest” to Trump out of all the city’s five boroughs. She recommended that the presidential candidate hold a rally in a friendlier borough during an interview on local news outlet Spectrum News.

“This is an attempt to, I think, trick some of our folks here, but I think the Bronx knows better,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “What we see here is that former President Trump has been in court, he has mounting legal fees. And this is, a lot of this was about covering the increasingly precarious financial situation that he’s in. … I think it’s important that we understand that there’s, you know, there’s a lot of folks that may be at this park that are not from New York City, that may be from surrounding or different areas, and we just want to make sure that folks are staying safe given all of that ruckus that can come in.”

New York did not vote for Trump in either the 2020 or 2016 elections. The last time the state elected a Republican for president was in 1984, when Ronald Reagan won the White House for the second time. Reagan also made a campaign stop in the Bronx ahead of his first New York win in 1980. At the time, he addressed the National Urban League Conference, which will host its annual conference in New Orleans in 2024.

A Republican city council member won a seat for the first time in 50 years. However, Ocasio-Cortez is in the middle of her third term and has won every election with over 70% of the vote.

“If we’re holding a rally in the Bronx, and there are folks from different states that are traveling in, which tends to be common with the Trump campaign, then I think it kind of shows that he kind of has to travel around with folks instead of going into communities and actually building authentic support,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “This is like essentially, I think, it’s a GoFundMe for legal funds that we’ve got happening here in the city.”

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Trump is a New York native and partially financed the Trump Tower, the Trump International Hotel, the Central Park skating rink, and the Plaza Hotel.

The former president has maintained a massive lead in the polls and secured the GOP presidential nomination despite the various indictments against him. He has pleaded not guilty to all 88 felony charges against him filed by prosecutors across the nation. New York’s hush money case against him is the only criminal trial that has the potential to reach a verdict before the 2024 elections.