Jews and other New Yorkers flocked to a rally for Donald Trump on Sunday at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan — a rally that the Kamala Harris campaign and other Democrats have falsely claimed is a “Nazi rally.”
Huge crowds gathered for the rally at the popular Manhattan venue, home to the New York Knicks and, until recently, a Billy Joel residency that lasted several years. (Joel, notably, is Jewish, and once wore a yellow star on stage in 2017.)
NEW YORK, NY – AUGUST 21: EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE: Billy Joel wears a jacket with the Star of David during the encore of his 43rd sold out show at Madison Square Garden on August 21, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Myrna M. Suarez/Getty Images)
Jews were visible among those gathered — including Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, distinguished by their black hats:
The venue has been the site of many Jewish events, and even an anti-Nazi rally in the 1940s. But that did not stop Democrats from claiming Trump chose the New York venue because it was some kind of obscure Nazi reference.
“Don’t miss on this, go do your Google on this — Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden,” Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz told supporters on Sunday. “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden. And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.”
The conspiracy theory started several weeks ago with Democratic strategist, who repeatedly claimed, on several networks, that Trump chose Madison Square Garden because of its supposed provenance as a Nazi symbol.
Hillary Clinton then picked up the conspiracy theory and began repeating it, without contradiction, from the media.
Clinton claimed, without evidence, that Trump would be “reenacting” a Nazi rally that took place at the venue.
Some Jews took extreme offense at Clinton’s statement:
Others posted photographs of religiously observant Jews attending the event — odd for a so-called “Nazi” reenactment:
Notably, Clinton tried to associate Trump with Nazis during her failed 2016 campaign. It did not work, but it did cause many of her supporters to panic, as they genuinely believed that America had elected Adolf Hitler as president.
As Breitbart News has noted: “The Harris/Walz campaign, in apparent desperation, has been trying to tie Trump to Hitler in its closing days — going beyond the debunked “very fine people” hoax and repeating debunked claims that Trump admired Hitler’s generals. Trump supporters have complained that such rhetoric could encourage violence and further assassination attempts.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
