Speaking to a deep-blue district in a deep-blue state, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump brought a new wrinkle to his usual campaign rally speech Thursday, briefly eschewing politics to talk about "success."
"Because we have so many young people here today, I want to talk about — just for a moment — about success," Trump told a Bronx campaign rally at Crotona Park, which aired live on the Newsmax2 online streaming platform.
"We are in the Bronx. We have young people, people that aspire to success, and I just wanted to — you know, I'm so tired of politics; can we devote six minutes to success?"
Trump's message did not completely abandon the politics of his trying to compete in the Bronx district that went 87% for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, but he talked about getting and sustaining "momentum," doing something "you love," and getting lucky through outworking your competition.
"So I believe in the expression — did you ever hear this expression? — the harder you work, the luckier you get," Trump told his crowd, which Trump campaign officials told Newsmax was estimated to be in the 20,000 range.
"It's a funny thing that happens: The harder I work, the luckier I get," Trump said, evoking the words of golfing great Gary Player.
"But it's true. I can tell you if you didn't work really hard, there is very little chance that I would be standing here right now."
Trump also delved into his family and his father, who was born in the Bronx in 1905 and started the real estate empire that Trump took over on his way to the White House.
"If you're going to spend your life working really hard, you have to love it," Trump said. "You have to pick something that you really enjoy.
"Ideally, you're going to love something where there's a potential, because there's some things you love, but it's not going to do you so good. So ideally, fall in love with something that's good."
And, eventually, when things do not go your way, Trump continued, that is when rising to the occasion can make you great.
"When times are tough, sometimes that's when you perform the best," Trump said. "You have to learn that about yourself."
At that moment, Trump paused his speech for minutes as medical personnel tended to a woman in medical distress in the crowd.
When he resumed, he said, "Some of the greatest days of my business career were in the toughest times, but I enjoyed waking up every single morning and going to battle."
Referencing his current political and legal battles with Democrats in deep-blue districts like Manhattan; Fulton County, Georgia; and Washington, D.C., Trump said he's asked, "How do you do it? How do you get up? How do you do it? ... They're after you.
"These human beings are after you all the time: impeachment hoax No. 1, impeachment hoax No. 2, lawsuits, all of it. And they're doing it to injure the political opponent of an incompetent candidate, because he can't run fairly and squarely."
"And I say, 'You know what I do? I just do it. I put on the blinders.' I say, 'I just do it.'"
And people ask him, Trump said, "Will it happen again?"
Of the 2024 election rematch against Biden, Trump said, "We have to make it too big to rig. We've got a lot of great people watching. We have to make it too big to rig.
"But one of the things you need in success is momentum. You need momentum.
"And when you have that momentum going, there's nothing that can stop you."
Ultimately, running for president for a third time is not about himself but about the country, he continued.
"I'm not doing it for myself," he said. "I'm doing it to make America great again, you know?
"If I didn't think we'd win easily, I would never do this.
"By the way, we're up in Pennsylvania, we're up in Michigan, we're up in New Hampshire today, we're up in Florida at numbers that you wouldn't even believe."
Set big goals and smash them, Trump concluded.
"You have to set your sights high. Set your sights so high, higher than you ever thought possible, and make your goals big and go after it," Trump told the Bronx crowd. "That's why I say we won't just make New York a little better. I say we want to make New York a lot better — better than it ever was before.
"We can quickly make America a great and glorious nation again."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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