NEW YORK – The leadership of the Young Republicans Club of New York, a far-right group, wants to be clear: It’s a good thing that only a few supporters of Donald Trump showed up at a pro-Trump rally held Monday outside the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
“We purposely kept it small,” club president Gavin Wax told HuffPost.
“I think there are more cameras here than people,” said Vish Burra, the club’s executive secretary and Rep. staff. George Santos (RN.Y.).
“I’d rather go with the cheaper one,” said Troy Olson, sergeant.
Turnout couldn’t be lower. Although Trump’s phone just a few days before “PROTEST, BRING OUR NATION BACK” in hopes that he will face criminal charges for years to life. quiet money payment for adult actor Stormy Daniels, members of the media vastly outnumbered Trump supporters at the rally.
Monday’s event, as a result, became a sort of media petting zoo for the threatened Republicans, some of whom were clamoring for interviews while others hid their faces for fear of identification.
“I have 50 cameras!” exclaimed one man, whose face was covered by an American flag mask, before sounding secretly happy that it would likely be in tomorrow’s paper.
Above all, there’s paranoia: The media and the feds are out to get Trump supporters, say those present.
“He was trying to be disruptive, violent,” said 15-year-old Braxton Foley, referring to the assembled reporters. Then the self-described “paleocon” put on a podcast. “I have 5,000 subs, so…”
The woman, who declined to give her full name, noted that, if Trump were indeed arrested, “a lot of patriots in this country would not be happy.” He stopped, saying that any protest would be peaceful.
A man wearing an “ATF” hat — considered a right-wing internet troll in the wild — told HuffPost he didn’t expect a Jan. 6-style reaction to Trump’s potential indictment. The prosecution for the riots that day “disturbed a lot of people,” he said. However, the man added, “I’d love to see what happens.”
Another man, who won’t give his name, sat on a park bench with a mismatched guitar that read “HANG FAUCI AND GATES.”
When HuffPost asked if he wanted to suspend Fauci, he clarified.
“Not. We want to torture him for three years first,” he said, then added: “put out his eyes, so that he lives with one eye and, like, bleeding.”
Scores of reporters were milling about, desperate for interviews, waiting for the New York Young Republican Club press conference to begin. One of the reporters started asking other people before he became a reporter.
When Wax finally began his speech, he insisted that Trump supporters should protest the former president’s arrest peacefully. But she struck a very different tone at a black-tie gala held in Manhattan late last year.
“We want total war,” he said in a December speech when discussing the perceived enemy of the MAGA movement. “We must be ready to fight in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. In the voice box. And in the streets.”
In the crowd that night, according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, were white nationalists and members of an Austrian political party formed by members of the Nazi party during World War II. Also in attendance was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
“It’s the only language the left understands,” Wax said. “The language of pure and unadulterated power.”
Wax also has a history of supporting the Proud Boys, a violent neo-fascist gang whose leaders have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. He once attended a speech in Manhattan by Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, when McInnes brought up the 1960 assassination of the leader of the Japanese Socialist Party, who was killed with a samurai sword by right-wing activists on live television.
It’s unclear how the assembled press knew about Wax’s history of extremism. Many were there to capture footage of the evening news – which probably didn’t work, as someone repeatedly interrupted Wax’s speech by screaming “Fuck you!” and “Fucking Trump!”
Earlier, surveying the crowd, Wax assured the reporters who surrounded him that Trump’s base was alive and well — just not now, and not in New York City.
“Everybody can have fun but there’s a lot of people here, but we’re in lower Manhattan, which means this isn’t Tennessee, this isn’t Alabama,” he said. “People like Trump have no problem getting a lot.”