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Trump asked New Yorkers ‘what do you have to lose’ by voting for him. The answers came thick and fast

When former President Donald Trump asked a loyal group of supporters in Uniondale, New York, on Long Island what the state had to lose by voting for him, he got nothing but cheers. Online, however, it was a different story.

“I say to the people of New York, with crime at an all-time high, 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?” Trump asked the cheering crowd.

California Democratic Rep. and Senate candidate Adam Schiff offered a list: “What do we have to lose? Years of progress on climate, the return of high-tech manufacturing, our global standing, the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Social Security, our democracy. Let’s not lose any of that.”

Author Goldie Taylor said simply, “Everything.”

In a separate message, she added: “We always get to this moment — whether it was Trump or another candidate — where a nominee for POTUS is fueled primarily and unashamedly by white nationalism.”

“Our democracy?” SV Date, HuffPost Wrote the White House correspondent.

The former president listed a number of reasons why New Yorkers should support the Republican candidate, a move they haven’t done since Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984 against Jimmy Carter’s former Vice President Walter Mondale.

Donald Trump pulled out an old rhetorical device to ask the crowd what they have to lose by voting for him
Donald Trump pulled out an old rhetorical device to ask the crowd what they have to lose by voting for him (REUTERS)

“We have horrible, disgusting, dangerous, filthy camps of junkies and homeless people living in places where our kids used to play Little League Baseball, but they don’t get to play as much anymore, right?” he asked.

He claimed there had been an increase in several categories of violent crime, including robberies and assaults.

“The trains and subways are filthy,” he said, claiming there is a 75 percent chance that a child caught on the subway will never be seen again.

“Businesses are fleeing, the hordes of illegal immigrants are being housed in luxury hotels at your expense, while our great veterans are living on the freezing cold or steaming sidewalks right outside the main entrance, the way the migrants enter their hotels,” Trump said.

The former president has used the phrase “what have you got to lose” in the past, notably when addressing Black voters and touting unproven cures for Covid-19.

Trump used this phrase back in 2016 when he was delivering his message to black voters, saying that Democrats and Hillary Clinton were taking them for granted.

Trump said at the time in Dimondale, Michigan: “You’re living in poverty, your schools are lousy, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth are unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?”

“What have you got to lose? Take it,” Trump said in April 2020 at the start of the Covid pandemic as he promoted a malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, as a treatment for the virus. “I really think they should take it, but it’s their choice, it’s their doctor’s choice or the doctor’s choice at the hospital, but hydroxychloroquine, try it, if you want.”

Trump claimed at the time that the drug would be a “gift from heaven.”