CNN
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Donald Trump anchored his bid to win a second term in the White House next week amid rising anti-migrant fears at a rally at Madison Square Garden, doubling down on his promise for a massive deportation program on Day 1 to reverse an ‘immigrant invasion’ to make.

As the ex-president’s allies defend him against Democrats’ claims that he is a “fascist” and an authoritarian secretary of state, based in part on warnings from his ex-chief of staff John Kelly, Trump on Sunday delivered a screed that is the most extreme can predict. presidency in modern history if he defeats Democratic candidate Kamala Harris on November 5.

“The United States is an occupied country,” Trump said, as Democrats projected messages on the outside of the legendary arena in New York City, reading “Trump is Unhinged” and “Trump praised Hitler.”

The huge rally was billed as launching the final phase of Trump’s attempt to engineer one of the biggest comebacks in American political history after he tried to overturn the results of the last election and was in disgrace in 2021 fallen. Before he spoke, some of the ex-president’s top supporters said he threw racist and vulgar rhetoric. Former congressional candidate David Rem called Harris the “antichrist” and “the devil,” while others lashed out at Hillary Clinton, “illegals” and the homeless. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash.”

Tony Hinchcliffe criticizes Latinos and Puerto Rico in opening speech of Trump rally

The Trump campaign later rejected the line, with spokesperson Danielle Alvarez saying in a statement to CNN: “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

Much of Trump’s speech was full of falsehoods and exaggerations. It was exactly the kind of rhetoric that the Harris campaign said could push moderate voters and disaffected Republicans to elect the vice president. But it also represents a bet by the Republican candidate that he can drive huge grassroots turnout and activate voters who don’t normally vote but agree with his hardline policies.

If anything, it has clarified the choice facing voters in the coming days as Harris promises Americans they can move away from Trump’s extreme behavior, which tested the rule of law and constitutional limits on presidents during his first term.

The ex-president’s blistering anti-migrant rhetoric is on par with the most blatant demagoguery by a major figure in any Western country since World War II. But it was also supplemented by a sharp economic argument that formed the second part of Trump’s closing argument and focused on the frustration of many Americans struggling with high grocery prices despite cooling inflation.

“I would like to start by asking a very simple question: are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Trump asked. “I am here today with a message of hope for all Americans: With your vote in this election, I will end inflation. I will stop the invasion of criminals coming into our country, and I will bring back the American dream.” He also said he would push for a tax credit for “family caregivers caring for a parent or loved one” — after Harris unveiled her own platform proposing that Medicare would cover home care.

“If Kamala Harris gets four more years, our economy can never recover. If I win, we will quickly build the greatest economy in the history of the world,” he said.

The former president based his first presidential campaign in 2016 on inflammatory rhetoric about Mexican migrants. Eight years later, he suggests that migrants are directly responsible for citizens’ economic frustrations, in a conceit that has been used by far-right leaders throughout history.

Trump’s dark appearance heightened the palpable sense of tension blanketing the country a week before an election that could mark a national turning point. Supporters of each candidate harbor a sense of dread about what will happen if their nominee loses, in a showdown that has put forward two incompatible visions of the future — and what it means to be American. Trump’s warnings that he envisions a presidency with virtually unchecked power, devoted to “retaliation,” reinforce the sense that a fateful moment is near.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz drew an allusion between Trump’s rally in downtown Manhattan and an infamous 1939 pro-Nazi rally at the previous arena at the same location, while Democrats now openly branded the ex-president as a ‘ label as fascist. The governor of Minnesota said: “There’s a direct parallel to a big gathering that took place in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden… and don’t think he doesn’t know for a second exactly what they’re doing there.”

Sunday’s raucous event underscored how the 2024 presidential election is breaking the mold, as Trump is unlikely to be competitive in New York state next week. But the ex-president’s homecoming in a city where he built skyscrapers to reflect his outsize personality showed how candidates sought headlines far from the battlegrounds. Harris was in the red state of Texas on Friday to highlight the Republican Party’s harsh abortion policies. She warns that this could spread across the country if Trump wins. And she’ll be holding an event in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

Both candidates are entering the final week of the campaign, with polls showing a tie in swing states and nationally. The election is already underway and 40 million Americans have already voted early in person or by mail. The CNN Poll of Polls shows no clear leader nationally, with Harris at 48% and Trump at 47%. The race will be decided in battleground states including the “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as the Sun Belt states of North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. The outcome could depend on as few as tens of thousands of votes, potentially setting the stage for tense counting over several days that will only fuel fears of a disputed election.

Early voting explains why Harris will make her closing arguments a full week before Election Day, with a rally on Tuesday evening at the Ellipse in Washington. The symbolism will be acute as it is the site of Trump’s infamous rally on January 6, 2021, when he told his crowd to “fight like hell” or they would be left without a country before his mob stormed the US Capitol to to try to undermine the country. the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory. Harris’ rally will be an emphatic exclamation point on an increasingly important theme of her campaign: that Trump represents an existential threat to American democracy.

That message was central to Biden’s campaign until he abandoned his re-election bid in July. Harris didn’t initially prioritize the same theme, but she’s becoming more and more excited about it. But some Democrats worry that the American people are more interested in how to quickly improve their economic conditions. “How effective is attacking Trump because he is a fascist? This topic is not as compelling as contrasting messages about Harris’ economic plans and her promise to protect reproductive rights,” read an Oct. 25 email from Future Forward, the top super PAC backing the Harris campaign, sent to the Democrats and was first reported by The New York Times and obtained by CNN on Sunday.

Trump has in recent days responded to claims from Democrats and Kelly that he is an aspiring authoritarian.

That caused the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, to try to reframe the ex-president’s on-the-record comments and blame the media for reporting exactly what his boss has said. Vance insisted Sunday in a fiery interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that the ex-president had not referenced political opponents when he openly considered targeting the military and National Guard against the “enemy within.” However, Trump had previously made it clear that he was talking about people like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Rep. Adam Schiff.

Jake Tapper and JD Vance have a fiery exchange over Trump’s “enemy inside” comments

“He said he wanted to use the military to go after far-left lunatics who are rising up, and … he also called them ‘the enemy within.’ He said separately, in a completely different context, in a completely different conversation, that Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff were a threat to this country,” Vance said.

Both Trump and Harris have focused in recent days on strategic sectors of their core electorates. Harris, for example, made another attempt on Sunday to win over black male voters, some of whom appear to be moving toward Trump. At a barbershop in West Philadelphia, an area that needs a large turnout to counter Trump’s lead in rural Pennsylvania, the vice president took part in a conversation with black men aimed at providing better chances. And she underscored the vital nature of the Commonwealth and its 19 electoral votes — which could block her path to the White House if it were to go for Trump, as it did during his 2016 election victory.

“We’re going to do it – victory runs through Philly and it runs through Pennsylvania,” Harris said.

The vice president is also targeting another constituency that could help propel her to the White House – female voters, as she looks to use the already significant gender gap to her advantage. She appeared in Michigan on Saturday with Michelle Obama – a reluctant political figure who is nonetheless hugely popular among Democrats. In a powerful speech, the former first lady appealed not only to women but also to “the men who love us” — warning that Trump’s history of building a conservative Supreme Court that overturned the federal right to abortion would have serious consequences would have on women’s health.

“Please don’t surrender our fate to people like Trump, who knows nothing about us, who has shown utter contempt for us,” Obama said. “Because a vote for him is a vote against us, against our health, against our worth.”