Madison Square Garden, the iconic venue known for Knicks basketball games and Billy Joel concerts, will host Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tonight in deep-blue New York City. With Election Day just over a week away, more than 40 million voters have already weighed in on whose vision of America they hope prevails.
Trump’s choice of venue—in a solidly Democratic city in a state that hasn’t gone red since electing Ronald Reagan—appears to have more to do with gaining media attention, bringing in big fundraising numbers, and staking a kind of claim on the former president’s birthplace than changing hearts and minds.
The city has amped up security presence around the “World’s Most Famous Arena,” where eager supporters have been outside since before sunrise.
“It’s the New York, but it’s also, you know, it’s MSG, it’s Madison Square Garden,” Trump said during a recent FOX News Radio interview. “Guys like you and I, that means a lot, those words. Madison Square Garden, right? Don’t you think so? … It’s a very big stop.”
Joining Trump on stage, according to a lineup the campaign provided, is a star-studded cast of MAGA loyalists who are all in. This group—ranging from elected officials to personal friends of Trump—have been instrumental in maintaining his campaign, defending his increasingly inflammatory remarks, and pushing right-wing ideology into seemingly every corner of the internet. While some of tonight’s speakers hold personal, political, and professional relationships with the former president, they also represent particular spheres of influence in the ever-evolving MAGA Republican Party.
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Here’s a look at the who’s who for tonight:
ELECTED OFFICIALS
After spending the morning on Sunday’s news shows, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance will be at MSG tonight. He’s joined by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who recently claimed that Trump’s medical records are “irrelevant.”
Other House representatives, Elise Stefanik of upstate New York and Byron Donalds of Southwest Florida, will also speak. Stefanik has gone from a moderate to a MAGA spokeswoman, giving an impassioned speech at the 2020 GOP Convention about “the Democrats’ baseless and illegal impeachment sham and the media’s endless obsession with it.” Donalds was reportedly on the phone with Trump when he got the news that the classified documents case had been dismissed, noting that he personally thought the case was “insane.”
FORMER AND CURRENT TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has had a lot of Ls recently, will be at MSG today. After Trump lost to President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, he chose Giuliani to head the legal efforts challenging the results. As a result of his actions in pursuit of that goal, Giuliani has been ordered by a federal judge to turn over, as Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin put it, “Basically All Earthly Possessions to Election Workers He Defamed.”
