Former President Donald Trump basked in the adulation of thousands of supporters on Long Island Wednesday night — insisting that recent attempts to kill him had “hardened my resolve” and predicting he would be the first Republican candidate to win New York state in 40 years.
“These encounters with death have not broken my will,” the Republican presidential nominee, 78, told roughly 16,000 fans at the Nassau Coliseum three days after a gunman was found hiding in the bushes of Trump’s namesake Florida golf course as he played a round.
“They have really given me a much bigger and stronger mission. They’ve only hardened my resolve to use my time on Earth to make America great again for all Americans, to put America first,” added Trump, whose ear was grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet at a July 13 rally in western Pennsylvania.
“The reason I’m here,” Trump told the roaring crowd, was because “we are going to win New York.”
At least two women got a little too caught up in the moment, flashing their bare breasts at Trump in apparent expressions of affection — with one having to be led away by police after R-rated dancing in the stands.
“We’re gonna have the greatest win in history when we pull this one off. It will be legendary,” the former president predicted.
“I say to the people of New York: With crime at record levels, with terrorists and criminals pouring in and with inflation eating your hearts out, vote for Donald Trump! What the hell do you have to lose?” he said, repeating questions he has asked of black voters and other traditionally Democratic-leaning demographics on the campaign trail.
