“I’M in New York and coming to your rally later,” I texted Donald Trump at 9am on Sunday morning, knowing he’d already be up and attacking the day. “Got to see you rock The Garden.”
Seconds later, he called me.
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“You’re always working!” he chuckled.
“So are you!” I replied.
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And he is.
I don’t know anyone his age who works as hard as 78-year-old Trump, or who exudes such extraordinary energy, with the possible exception of Rolling Stones frontman Sir Mick Jagger, 80.
Love him or hate him, and there is rarely any middle ground when it comes to the most polarising figure in American political history, you can’t deny Trump’s work-rate or zest for the fight of life.
He also has a razor-sharp instinct for a great marketing stunt, as we saw when he put a shift in cooking and serving burgers and fries in McDonald’s last week, and with his decision to hold a rally at the iconic Madison Square Garden.
Critics mocked it as a ‘waste time and money’ to go to the MSG just nine days before the US election on November 5, because New York is a strong Democrat state, and the Republicans have almost zero chance of winning it.
But as so often, the Trump haters missed the point.
He chose the MSG for three reasons:
1. As a New Yorker, it had always been his dream to headline there. That’s why there was a huge billboard of Trump screaming ‘DREAM BIG AGAIN!’ on the side of the arena. Americans like people who live their dreams.
2. All the biggest stars of sport, entertainment and popular culture have performed there. As Billy Joel, who holds the record for most performances at the venue, says in a quote poster outside the VIP entrance: ‘Madison Square Garden is the centre of the universe.’ This is where Muhammad Ali had his ‘Fight of the Century’ with Joe Frazier in 1971 (which Frazier won), Marilyn Monroe breathlessly sang her famous birthday serenade to President John F. Kennedy in 1962, and Pope John Paul II visited in 1979.
3. Most importantly, Trump knew it would generate huge media attention, sucking the vital oxygen of publicity and attention away from his opponent Kamala Harris.
“Apparently, 200,000 people tried to get tickets, ten times the capacity!” he told me on the phone, sounding like an excited Elton John. “This is a real movement.”
It is, and that movement is expanding which is why he’s edged ahead in the election polls, and why I believe he’s going to win and complete the greatest comeback since Tiger Woods won the Masters golf tournament again in 2019 when everyone thought he was a washed-up has-been.
‘Roaring ovation’
This was the first Trump rally I’ve attended, and it felt like being at a big raucous music or sporting event – a six-hour extravaganza with big names like Elon Musk, Rudy Guiliani and Hulk Hogan all whipping the crowd up before the headline act appeared to a roaring ovation, introduced by his wife Melania.
Some of the many speakers hit an unpleasant note, like comedian Tony Hinchcliffe who rattled off a load of racially insensitive so-called ‘jokes’ about Puerto Rico and Latinos that weren’t funny and fell very flat.
But for the main part, the tone was combative, confident, and celebratory.
The Republicans believe they’re going to win and so does Trump.
And if they’re right, then the Democrats and Kamala Harris will only have themselves to blame.
After a dramatic re-start to the presidential race once doddery Joe Biden was forced out, Harris has abandoned her initially very positive campaign mantra of ‘joy and hope’ to slip back into the constant apocalyptically negative Trump-bashing rhetoric of ‘He’s a fascist, the new Hitler, he’ll end American democracy,’ that Hillary Clinton tried against him – and which backfired so badly.
This incessant over-demonising of Trump – obviously, he didn’t perpetrate a Holocaust of millions of people during his first term, and there were a lot of Jews and pro-Israel banners inside the MSG on Sunday night – has never worked.
The last time I was at Madison Square Garden, it was the day after Trump’s stunning win at the 2016 election, and I found myself sitting next to the comedian Chris Rock and asked him why he thought Trump had won.
“If someone’s murdered eight people,” he said, “don’t go around saying he’s murdered nine.”
In other words, there is plenty of stuff to legitimately criticise Trump about without absurdly exaggerating his danger.
But the truth, as I told Trump on the phone, is that Kamala Harris has turned out to be a terrible candidate and the more Americans hear from her, and especially her angry ranting about him, the less popular she gets.
It’s also clear from the polls that when it comes to who Americans trust to fix the two biggest issues of an inflation-ravaged economy and illegal immigration crisis then it’s him not her.
‘Foam-mouthed liberals’
The most shocking and for me, pertinent revelation from last night’s event didn’t happen on stage but outside.
A Secret Service agent told me that just 150 protestors turned up to express their dismay at Donald Trump holding a rally at the very heart of New York City, when they’d been expecting thousands.
In 2016, vast armies of foam-mouthed liberals took to the same streets to howl their rage about him.
If they really believed he’s the new Hitler, they’d have probably found the strength to get off their lazy backsides and come and protest.
In the end, I think this election will come down, as it so often does, to the economy.
Trump started his rally speech by saying: “I’d like to begin by asking a very simple question: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
“NOOOOO!” shrieked the audience.
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And I suspect, so did tens of millions of Americans who were watching at home on TV.
That’s why I think he’ll win.
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