Around 9:40 a.m. Tuesday morning on Lafayette Street, George Santos was taking an impromptu jog, wearing his weird sneaker loafers. The New York representative had arrived too early for his scheduled appearance at a downtown Manhattan rally in support of Donald Trump, who was facing his arraignment across the street later on Tuesday. With the city’s media bearing down on the rally site at Collect Pond Park — and with nothing for them to do but ask Trump supporters what they’re thinking — reporters and photographers flocked to Santos. He’s got a lot of answering to do about his largely made-up record, but he ignored the media all the way to Canal Street.
Santos wasn’t the only Republican to bail in a hurry. As pro-Trump supporters arrived to hear headline speaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, they were cordoned off in the southern half of the park, separated by barricades from the anti-Trump faction on the northern side. Between the reporters and the cops — who outnumbered actual protesters for the second day in a row — fans of the president showed off their favorite MAGA gear: a “COVID-19 Is a Lie” sign, a “Make Liberals Cry Again” T-shirt. One lifelong New Yorker, who identified himself only as Steve, held a sign that read “Salem 1692 / Bragg 2023.” A man in Rollerblades spun a basketball on the tip of an American flag a few feet from Jordan Klepper, the Daily Show correspondent who likes to prove that Trump protesters aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.
Around 10:30 a.m., Greene entered the park wearing the Terminator cop glasses she’s partial to. Surrounded by the protest organizers and a zillion more reporters, she pushed through the crowd toward a small riser. The people packed in. Greene was handed a megaphone and yelled to her supporters about how “Democrats are the party of violence” and New York used to be a “great city.” But two anti-Trump protesters — both white guys over 40 — had come over from their side of the park and began screaming.
No one could hear Greene, even from a few feet away. “Go home! New York City hates your guts,” yelled a man in a blue checked shirt. He might not have been the perfect liberal messenger. “You look like a tranny,” he added. But the hollering drowned Greene out until the cavalry arrived — a man who brought his own megaphone. “Let’s fuck Brandon. We’re all going to fuck him,” he yelled, in the spirit of raising hell. A group entered the fray blowing whistles — New York City councilman Chi Ossé, public advocate Jumaane Williams, and Representative Jamaal Bowman no less. Greene left the riser as police escorted her from the park. She had a plane to catch and plans to attend Trump’s post-arraignment speech on Tuesday evening at Mar-a-Lago on far friendlier ground.
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