About 100 people held a pro-Donald Trump rally in midtown Manhattan on Saturday, in one of about 40 such events across the country at the end of a week in which the president failed to get enough votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act and saw the FBI confirm it was investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
“It’s time for us to stand up and tell people what we believe in,” said Assunta Dell’Elce, a Trump supporter from Long Island who organized the Manhattan event.
“We need to be heard.”
On Friday, the Republican speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, pulled a vote on a proposed replacement of the Affordable Care Act. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to replace Obamacare, as the ACA is known, and touted his skills as a negotiator.
Both claims have come under scrutiny after the president failed to convince members of his own party, who control both houses of Congress, to vote for the healthcare bill.
Dell’Elce, echoing Trump’s own remarks, said she was unperturbed by the failure.
“What’s going to happen now is Obamacare is going to get worse,” she said. “The premiums are going to go up and it’s just going to destroy itself.
“Now he’s going to take care of the taxes. I want him to take care of the middle class like us. My husband pays much too much taxes.”
Dell’Elce, who raises puppies for training as guide dogs, had predicted more than 500 people would show up. But by 1.30pm, half an hour after the official start, only around 100 were at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, two blocks north of the United Nations building.
Undeterred, people chanted Trump’s name while a small choir sang in praise of the president. One woman was carrying a life-size cardboard cutout of Trump, while a man named Freddy Lent had brought a Trump-Pence 2016 banner – with the “16” taped over and replaced by a “20”.
“I did it with masking tape so I didn’t damage it,” he said, adding that he had travelled to Manhattan from Yonkers, about 10 miles north of the city.
Like Dell’Elce, Lent said Trump was not to blame for the failure of the healthcare bill.
“He may be the best negotiator there is,” Lent said. “But he has to just rely on his own party and deal with the Freedom Caucus and all of the hardcore conservatives.
“Sometimes you have to meet in the middle, right of center. The Freedom Caucus should be able to do that. Paul Ryan’s healthcare plan may not have been the best healthcare plan there was but it was still better than Obamacare. Everyone should have met in the middle of right of center.”
Lent said he regularly held pro-Trump events in Yonkers.
“My rallies only have a couple of people,” he said. “We stand on street corners with flags on poles.”
Similar pro-Trump events were due to take place on Saturday in cities in 30 states. Anti-Trump activists planned counter-protests at some locations. In Rhode Island, the Providence Journal reported that a march in the city attracted 1,000 people from both sides of the spectrum.
In Philadelphia, about 75 Trump supporters were met by a similar number of people opposing the president, according to the Philly Voice. A group called Resist was planning to counter a pro-Trump event in Columbus, Ohio; at a rally at Bolsa Chica State Beach in southern California, violence flared briefly.
There were no anti-Trumpers at the New York event, allowing people like Hedy Aldina, from Brooklyn, to continue their revelry unimpeded.
“Like the New Yorker he is, he’s a street fighter, and I think he knows what he’s doing,” Aldina said of the president. “It’s not his fault he keeps getting knocked down by the opposition.”
Adina had pinned 10 patches to her sheepskin coat and black trousers. Each bore a different message – “It’s time to bomb the shit out of them”, one said – and she was also wearing a ring with a rhinestone-encrusted handgun on it.
“I have one in black, one in pink, one in silver, which the cat stole, and this one,” Aldina said of her ring.
Aldina, like Dell’Elce and Lent, believed Trump was not at fault for the Republicans’ healthcare debacle. But she said it would still be good for the president to see people cheering for him.
“I think we all need support,” she said. “I do think it would be nice for him to feel the love.”
Later, Trump tweeted his thanks to those who turned out to back him. “Amazing support,” he wrote. “We will all MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
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