After a day in court watching jury selection for his criminal trial in Manhattan, former President Donald Trump turned in one of the best performances of his 2024 campaign to date when he visited a Harlem bodega to highlight crime in New York City.
The visit was notable, not only because it was an unusual place for a campaign stop in the middle of deep-blue New York, but because this particular bodega was where Jose Alba, who worked as a clerk at the store, killed an ex-convict who was attempting to rob him in 2022.
Alba, who was clearly acting in self-defense, was forced to undergo a hellish ordeal as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged him with murder and had him detained at Rikers Island until he posted a bond of $250,000. Alba was eventually allowed to walk free after Bragg was forced to come to terms with the fact that no jury would convict Alba of murder under the circumstances and dropped the charges.
It was with this backdrop of events that the former president made his visit to the same bodega, two years after Bragg forced Alba to suffer simply because he successfully defended himself against a violent assailant. In comments he made during the visit, Trump highlighted the rampant crime in the area and vowed to put a stop to it if he is successful in his presidential campaign.
“Every week, they’re being robbed two or three times, it’s crazy,” Trump said. “You know what? The police can stop it, but they have to be allowed to do their job. You have to stop crime, and we’re going to let the police do their job. They have to be given back their authority. We’re making a big play for New York. I love this city and it’s gotten so bad in the last three years, four years, and we’re going to straighten New York out.”
Outside of the bodega a crowd of supporters repeatedly cheered the former president.
It should be noted that the odds of Trump winning New York in the November election are quite slim, given the state’s steep Democratic lean, but his appearance at the bodega exuded the kind of charisma and energy that made his first run for president in 2016 so successful.
Trump is at his best when he speaks to everyday people about their daily lives. Whether it is at a McDonalds in East Palestine, Ohio, a bodega in New York City, or a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, these candid images of him interacting with people of all walks of life allow him to cut through the filter of hostility from the legacy media and speak to people directly. For the owner of this bodega, it proved pretty successful.
“I have never voted, because I’ve been working, but this time I will,” Maad Ahmed, the owner of the bodega, told the New York Post. “We need Donald Trump back in the White House because he’s a strong guy.”
Polling suggests there are millions of people, such as Ahmed, who have never cast a vote but would like to see Trump return to the White House.
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As the politically motivated legal campaign locks Trump into attending court proceedings and forces him to campaign in unorthodox ways, he should do what he can to maximize moments such as the one at the New York bodega. He should visit the hotels that were forced to host illegal immigrants, walk the streets of crime-ridden neighborhoods, ride the subway, and point out every spot of feces and urine that is commonplace there. It may give the Secret Service a heart attack, but it would force attention to matters beyond the courtroom and would show that Trump is a man who will speak to anyone about their problems, while Biden holds sparsely attended speeches in between weekends at the beach.
For Trump, speaking to people such as Ahmed, who are not usually politically engaged, and walking in their footsteps could prove critical in turning them out to vote in November. And who knows, maybe the Empire State could shock the world on Nov. 5.