- Donald Trump entertained thousands of supporters on Long Island Wednesday
- He used his rally to keep immigration and the border central to his campaign
- READ MORE: Follow the day’s latest political developments in our live blog
Former President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he is planning to visit the city at the center off false migrants-eating pet claims within the next two weeks, as he tries to keep immigration at the heart of the election battle.
His supporters roared as he cracked an off-color joke about visiting Springfield, Ohio, during a rally on Long Island.
‘You may never see me again,’ he said to the delight of thousands of people packed into the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, who chanted ‘Save the cats.’
‘But that’s OK, you gotta do what you gotta do.’
Unfounded claims about Haitian migrants in the city eating cats and other pets have circulated in the dark recesses of the internet for weeks.
But they blew up last week when Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, spread a baseless rumor that migrants were preying on cats.
Local authorities have debunked the claims and it later emerged that it was based on a report about a missing cat that turned up safe and well.
Vance has defended his actions, saying the stories highlight how communities in places like Springfield are struggling with an influx of arrivals.
An exclusive poll for DailyMail.com revealed that the tales may be resonating with a chunk of voters even if they are not true.
A poll of 1000 likely voters, conducted by J.L. Partners, found that more than a third believed Haitians were eating cats, geese or other domesticated animals.
At the same time, however, the poll shows Trump support crashing among Hispanic voters, a segment that could decide the 2024 election.
Trump said he would also visit Aurora, California, which has been subject to similar debunked claims about Venezuelan gangs.
It is all part of an effort to continue hitting Harris on the border.
He talked about the impact in New York.
‘The mobs of illegal migrants are being put up in luxury hotels at your expense while our great veterans live on the freezing or steaming sidewalks right outside the main entrance to where the migrants enter the hotel,’ he said.
‘We have veterans lying on the streets — squalid. And they’re seeing migrants go up to the seventeenth floor of their suite. How crazy has our country become.’
Trump will be known as the ‘Border President,’ he said while ‘Kamala will be known as your invasion president.’
New York is not in play in 2024, even though Trump claimed he was in position to win it for the first time in decades.
Instead, he was on Long Island in a district that Democrats are hoping to pick up as they look to flip the House.
His audience brought a Long Island energy to proceedings, their chants echoing through the arena and their boos making the seats tremble.
Trump threw in some promises for his New York audience, pledging to rebuild the city’s transit system and designating Ground Zero as a national monument.
He ran through some of his greatest hits, bragging about his crowd size (‘greater than Elvis’), slamming the ‘fake news,’ and claiming the world had been at peace under his rule.
He followed them with a string of unfounded claims about his opponent, saying Harris wanted to stuff the Supreme Court with 25 justices and defund the police.
Before heading out to the suburbs, Trump stopped at a Bitcoin cafe in New York City to promote his family’s new cryptocurrency venture. He handed out burgers and announced that he was likely to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky next week.
Trump has long been viewed as a thorn in efforts to keep up support to the embattled Ukrainian leader, rallying Republicans against sending more weapons to fight the Russian invasion.
But Zelensky will be in New York next week for a major United Nations meeting, triggering speculation that he might seize the chance to make his case in person to the former president.
‘Probably, yes,’ Trump told reporters in New York when asked if he would meet the Ukrainian president.
In recent months, several world leaders or former leaders have met with Trump during visits to the U.S.
Last month Zelensky said he wanted to present a peace plan to Biden, Harris and Trump.
The former president made his remarks ahead of a campaign rally in Nassau County on Long Island.
The area could be crucial to his party holding control of the House. The seat is held by Anthony D’Esposito, one of 18 Republicans representing heavily Democratic area.
In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump by about four percentage points on Long Island and in Nassau County by about 60,000.
However, Trump beat him narrowly in neighboring Suffolk County.
The former president has claimed New York is in reach for him, but he would need to rack up the votes heavily in these areas to outweigh the city’s heavy Democratic slant.
The rally was hit by drama earlier in the morning, amid false reports that explosives were detected nearby.
Local police worked quickly to correct online posts and said that the claims emanated from a civilian training a sniffer dog.
That still came too late for some news organizations, including DailyMail.com, that reported tweets posted by a reporter claiming to be with far right One America News Network.
