Amid the ongoing hush money trial in New York, former President Donald Trump was met with roaring crowds of supporters eager to see the GOP frontrunner. As Trump was moving to get in his vehicle, he intentionally stopped what he was doing and honored a group of NYPD police officers standing nearby.
Trump approached the officers shaking each of their hands while asking them how they were doing. At one point, the former president says, “I love you guys,” demonstrating his respect for law enforcement. “Come on, get over her. We’ll get a photo,” Trump insists.
While Trump was in New York City for his court appearance, he also visited a Manhattan bodega where clerk Jose Alba fatally stabbed an ex-convict in self-defense roughly two years ago. The incident became highly controversial when Alba was initially charged with murder for the act of self-preservation.
The former president personally spoke to the owner of the bodega and several others, expressing his support for the small business. Trump expressed his opinion that they should have the right to defend themselves from criminals threatening their establishment. “You should be allowed to have a gun. If you had a gun, you’d never get robbed, you’d never get robbed, that would be the end of it,” Trump said.
The bodega workers explained to Trump that the business continues suffering from rampant criminal activity. “What do you do? Isn’t it crazy? Is it almost a way of doing business, you getting robbed?” Trump asked the bodega’s co-owner, Maad Ahmed, an immigrant from Yemen.
“I have never voted, because I’ve been working, but this time I will. We need Donald Trump back in the White House because he’s a strong guy,” explained Ahmed. “What happened to Jose was very hard for me. Jose was defending himself from the guy who came behind the counter. All for $1 worth of chips,” he added, discussing the self-defense incident.
Trump has recently doubled down on his law and order rhetoric amid the tragic killing of NYPD police officer Jonathan Diller. In the interest of protecting the business environment in New York, Trump stated that he would let NYPD “do their job” and actually prevent crime. Watch Trump’s interaction with NYPD below:
“Every week they’re being robbed two or three times, it’s crazy. You know what? The police can stop it but they have to be allowed to do their job,” Trump noted. “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 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.”
Trump recently attended the wake of Officer Diller, where he spoke with his family and called for society to uphold the rule of law. “And we have to stop it. We have to stop it. We have to get back to law and order we have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often,” he said.
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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