Title: Why Trump Rallied on Long Island

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. In a week when Donald Trump was preparing a rally on Long Island to try to woo suburban swing voters around the country, figured he'd get attention in many suburban districts from that and try to help New York Republicans in particular in suburban swing districts, running for Congress or running for reelection to Congress, the party escalated the childless cat lady attack on Kamala Harris. Here is Trump's former press secretary, if you haven't heard this yet, now the governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, at a rally this week.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Not only do my kids serve as a permanent reminder of what's important, they also keep me humble. You can walk into a room like this where people cheer when you step onto the stage and you might think for a second that you're special. Then you go home and your kids remind you very quickly you're actually not that big of a deal. Ours are pretty good at it. My kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble.

Brian Lehrer: All right. What happened yesterday in response to that? Well, here is the second gentleman of the United States, Vice President Harris's husband, Doug Emhoff, who went public yesterday with a response.

Doug Emhoff: The latest hit on Kamala, did you see what they said? This one is unbelievable. They said that somehow because Cole and Ella aren't Kamala's "biological children," that she doesn't have anything in her life to keep her humble, as if keeping women humble, whether you have children or not, is something we should strive for. It is not.

Brian Lehrer: As if keeping women humble is something we should strive for. Never mind the fact that she's in a blended family with stepchildren who are very close to her and very involved with her and she with them. It was against that backdrop in the campaign news headlines that Trump came to Long Island. You may be wondering, why did Trump hold a rally at the Nassau Coliseum in the first place last night when he won't win New York State's electoral votes?

Well, according to the political analysis I've been seeing in multiple places, it was largely to help Republican members of Congress from Long Island and elsewhere in the New York suburbs, freshmen members who got elected in Long Island's red wave and also a bit in the Hudson Valley in 2022. The Long Island incumbents are Nick LaLota in District 1 on the east end, Andrew Garbarino in District 2, a South Shore district, mostly in Suffolk and a bit of southwest Nassau County. It's probably the safest seat for Republican incumbent of the group, and Anthony D'Esposito in District 4, which is most of southern Nassau County.

D'Esposito is being challenged by the former county executive Laura Gillen, LaLota, by the former CNN commentator and Rudy Giuliani aide and author of books on centrism, John Avlon, and Garbarino by small business owner Rob Lubin. LaLota and D'Esposito, well, they may have all been there last night. Our guests will tell us that. Certainly LaLota and D'Esposito made a show of it on their social media feeds. The Nassau Coliseum itself is in D'Esposito's district.

With the way things are going in the presidential race right now is hugging Trump in the purple districts of New York good or bad for those candidates? With us now, Politico's Emily Ngo, who coauthors the Politico New York Playbook newsletter and covers New York politics and government generally at the local, state, and federal levels, and no stranger to Long Island. She previously worked as a national political reporter at News Day. Emily, great to have you with us again. Welcome back to WNYC.

Emily Ngo: Thank you for having me. Great to be with you and your listeners, Brian. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: There are many places we could enter, but let's start with the statewide view. You remind us in your article this week that New York, of all places, all places I say that because who thought New York would be the big swing state for Congress when it's not for president? New York, of all places, is critical for control of Congress because there are five, that's the number you give us, five freshmen Republicans facing tough reelection fights. Does that include those three on Long Island?

Emily Ngo: It includes two. It depends on how you look at it, how you count it, but yes, certainly New York State and California as well, even if they are traditionally, conventionally, historically, blue states and they won't determine the presidency, they are crucial to determining who controls Congress, the US House of Representatives, next year. There are five, as you said, House Republicans who are freshmen who are vulnerable. There is one frontline Democrat who is vulnerable and trying to protect his seat. Another, if you look really closely on Long Island--

Brian Lehrer: That frontline Democrat is Pat Ryan in the Hudson Valley, right?

Emily Ngo: That's right. Pat Ryan in the Hudson Valley. Tom Suozzi on Long Island as well is considered a frontline Democrat by the DCCC, but he's not nearly as vulnerable as Pat Ryan.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Of course, people will remember that Suozzi got his old seat back there in Congress and that's most of the north shore of Nassau County and a little bit of Queens after the George Santos debacle. The Republicans lost that seat to Suozzi, and now it's not considered that competitive. Mike Lawler, a little north of the city, being challenged by former Congressman Mondaire Jones.

Marc Molinaro in the mid-Hudson Valley, Poughkeepsie, and all around there between New York City and Albany being challenged by Josh Riley. That's another rematch from 2022, like Gillen versus D'Esposito on the island. Are those the five Republicans your article refers to, those two Hudson Valley Republicans, well, I guess, and two on Long Island, and then there's one further upstate?

Emily Ngo: That's right. In the Syracuse area, there's Congressman Brandon Williams, who is perhaps, maybe I would say, the most vulnerable House Republican in the country, at least if not one of them. He faces a challenger in John Mannion who was in state government, a former teacher. He's trying to hold onto the seat there but probably ready for a brighter spotlight to be shined there because that's a seat that Democrats really do believe they can pick up.

Brian Lehrer: Where is that, again? We don't talk about that so much in the New York metro-based show that we have. What part of the state is that?

Emily Ngo: The Syracuse area.

Brian Lehrer: How many of those five endangered Republicans were there last night?

Emily Ngo: We had two at the Trump rally, that's D'Esposito and LaLota, and should note that Mike LiPetri was there too. He is the challenger to Suozzi, former state assembly member, who is mounting a challenge against Suozzi, who, as you know, in the special election and elsewhere, runs pretty much as his own brand. It doesn't necessarily need the party or members of the party, leaders of the party, to back him up.

Brian Lehrer: Staying on the statewide view for a minute, as your article reminds us, before President Biden dropped out of the race, he had only a single-digit lead against Trump in at least one major New York statewide poll. There were starting to be murmurings about, could even New York be in play for Donald Trump? How has that changed with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket?

Emily Ngo: It's changed significantly. I'll note that Pat Ryan was one of the Democrats who had called ahead of Biden, leaving the race for him to drop out, indicating that he was serving as an anchor to down-ballot Democrats. Kamala Harris, particularly in the suburbs closer to New York City, really is giving down-ballot Democrats a lot more breathing room. They certainly won't take anything for granted, but they are a little more confident in their prospects now that she is leading the top of the ticket rather than Joe Biden.

Brian Lehrer: You wrote that D'Esposito's challenger, former Nassau County executive, the Democrat Laura Gillen, appears to understand Trump's popularity and has been reticent about criticizing him. Do you have any examples? Go ahead.

Emily Ngo: Sure. Yes. Compared to other candidates-- I note that she actually was former Hempstead town supervisor and not the former county executive, but she doesn't quite go at him in a way--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I apologize for that mistake. I made that mistake a couple of times. Go ahead.

Emily Ngo: She doesn't quite go at him directly in the way that I would say other Democratic challengers have been. She really is more reticent because she knows that there are independent voters, more moderate voters even, in that district who could split their ballot, who respect Trump or have family members and friends and colleagues who want to vote for Trump. She wants to talk about the issues a little more than Trump, but she did take the opportunity, seize it, really, to attack the former president when it came to the issue of state and local tax deductions, salt, which is very big in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island, to voters there.

Brian Lehrer: You quote the current Nassau County executive, Republican Bruce Blakeman, saying Trump coming to Long Island sends a message to all suburbs about American values. Trump is very challenged in the suburbs of America, where he lost enough ground in 2020 to lose the election after he had won in 2016. How do you see the debate over American values, since you put it that way, or since Blakeman put it that way in the suburbs in 2024?

Do they think things like false stories about immigrants eating your cats and Sarah Huckabee Sanders ripping women who have stepchildren and no biological children reflect the values of the suburbs in a way that helps Trump, and to the point of this segment, these congressional candidates, to win? The gender gap in the polls has already been growing to staggering proportions.

Emily Ngo: Yes, certainly. I think that the topics you mentioned, the issue, certainly childless cat ladies or anything in the way of the hoax and the claim out of Springfield, Ohio, that Haitian migrants are eating their pets, debunked, will spur some suburban voters to the polls to vote against Trump. Also, anything, particularly when it comes to women voters, involving abortion or the threat of a nationwide ban to abortion, would help the Democrats as well. That's why you see a lot of the congressional Republicans trying to moderate the way they talk about some of that.

This is different from race to race in district to district. I'm trying not to generalize too much, but these are issues that suburban voters will focus on at the same time, and the candidates are sure to talk about this just to differentiate themselves from the top of the ticket. A lot of it is about the economy and issues that hit your pocketbook, as well as crime and immigration. There are really a lot of issues that Democrats and the Republicans who are more vulnerable and trying to flip these seats or keep these seats, really would rather focus on than some of the cultural issues that Donald Trump and JD Vance want to keep in the spotlight.

Brian Lehrer: At the rally, from the parts I watched, it was mostly the usual stump speech, including lines like this, that shows Trump is still running on the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Donald Trump: Worst of all, with their open borders and bad elections, they have made us into a Third World nation, something which nobody thought was even possible.

Brian Lehrer: The rally did fill the Coliseum, around 16,000 seats. You weren't there personally, I understand, but any take on who the Trump faithful on Long Island were who did come out?

Emily Ngo: Sure, yes. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is a Trump loyalist and a Trump surrogate, said that there's actually more than 60,000 who sought tickets. Those who filled the Coliseum, according to my colleagues who were there reporting and people I talked with, came from all over. A lot of them had camped out overnight to see the president, and I want to make clear that he actually does have a pretty solid base of support in Nassau County, in contrast to maybe the Hudson Valley and other parts of New York State, and certainly other parts of the country.

In 2022, Long Island turned a lot redder. In the subsequent years, when it came also to local and state seats, there's a red wave that has impacted Long Island in ways that suburban areas elsewhere in the country have not been impacted. Democrats do better in other suburbs than they do on Long Island. There's something a little different about Long Island, maybe about the local party and its strength there that differentiates it from other parts of the country with the same demographics.

He knew that Donald Trump did in his campaign, that he would be welcomed if he came here. In addition to helping congressional candidates like D'Esposito and like LaLota, this campaign rally actually had already been scheduled to coincide with what was originally Trump's sentencing date in the hush money case, the business record falsification verdict that had been handed down in [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: Because he would have had to be in New York anyway.

Emily Ngo: Right. This would have served to be a rallying of supporters after his sentencing. The campaign kept it. One of many reasons they kept it is because they knew that they would be so warmly welcomed, but they also had figures like Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, as I said, and the Nassau GOP chair, Joe Cairo, inviting Donald Trump, making sure that he would feel welcome. They've been in close contact with him. I should note, also, that the Nassau Coliseum, where the rally was hosted, is set to be a casino to be owned by Las Vegas Sands, which is owned by Miriam Adelson, who is a Trump mega-donor. All these little connections, there's a multitude of reasons he came here.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you were at the Trump rally last night, call in and talk about the experience. Assuming you're a Trump supporter, why do you support him this year? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, with Emily Ngo, from Politico New York, former Newsday political reporter, so very familiar with Long Island, or anyone else from the island or the other New York swing districts for Congress, how do you see the state of the races in your districts compared to 2022 when New York made such a difference in giving control of Congress to the Republicans? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Again, if you were at the Trump rally last night, call in and talk about the experience. Assuming you're a Trump supporter, why do you support him this year? 212-433-WNYC. Especially as a New Yorker, when chances are you'll be in about a -20 minority in the state, -20 points if it comes out like 2016 and 2020, or anyone else from Long Island or the other New York swing districts for Congress who might be Democrats, how do you see the state of the races in your districts compared to 2022 when New York made such a difference in giving control of Congress to the Republicans? 212-433-WNYC. Call or text, 212-433-9692.

Let's take a call right now. Frank in Bayville, who says he was at the rally. Hey, Frank, you're on WNYC.

Frank: Brian, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. It's been a while. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to your audience.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Frank: The rally was great. There was a lot of high energy there last night. The crowd outside, as usual, very peaceful people. Everyone was very excited to be there waving their flags and having a good time. The security was second to none. When I tell you that Nassau County Police Department, they had every corner covered, snipers on the roof. I don't know if you had heard, there was earlier talks of an explosives threat earlier in the day, so they brought in all sorts of special units, and these guys were on point. I never felt more safe anywhere, to be honest with you, but was very interesting.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, I'm not sure the explosives threat was confirmed, or maybe it was just one of these threats that people call in, whatever.

Frank: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: Obviously, with what's been happening this summer, security had to be really tight. Actually, I guess they've concluded that even though most people might feel a little less safe in an enclosed space like a coliseum, it's safer because you can more easily check everybody coming in. The people who tried to get at Trump in the earlier rallies this summer, well, they were both outdoors and could lie in wait outside the perimeter. Just saying. Go ahead.

Frank: That's right. That's exactly right, Brian. Everybody felt good and safe. That was great. What was interesting was they had this group of about maybe 100 or so Haitian protesters out front. They were very aggressive. I was talking with some of them, and it was nice. I got to see eye to eye with a few of them, but they were all wearing the same shirts, they all had the same flags, and it was very funny. Right around eight o'clock they all just disappeared. Made me feel like they were paid agitators, to be honest with you.

One of the things that we got along about was the Haitian children and what the Clinton Foundation had done to the Haitian people. I was reminding them, "You guys are going to vote for these people. Don't forget what they did to your kids and all the missing children." It was good that they saw that, and it was a good connecting moment, to be honest with you.

Brian Lehrer: Frank, considering that the claim of Haitian immigrants, overwhelmingly legal in Springfield, Ohio, debunked claim by the mayor there, the city manager there, the governor of Ohio, they're all Republicans, about this stealing people's pets. Do you have any-- Well, do you at least buy that it's a false story, or does it give you any pause about supporting Trump and Vance when they keep elevating it?

Frank: Here's the thing, Brian, and I think you know this very well. Depending on which way you shine the light, the story could be perceived as true or false. Could there have been Haitian migrants that were possibly hungry, or maybe this is normal culture for them because this is another culture where they do eat birds, Vietnamese, dogs. We know about this. It's a different culture. This is a culture clash of what we're seeing here. What happened in Ohio is--

Brian Lehrer: Wait, wait. Frank, you're calling it a culture clash as if it's an ongoing thing. There wasn't even one incident that has been documented to have been true. Just one person's claim of an incident that's been documented to be false, and you're elevating it into a broad brush cultural difference when even the one alleged incident was never confirmed.

Frank: That's not what I saw. I don't have the facts in front of me, but I had heard and listened to multiple call-ins to the county, to the town, about this. I'd seen video. It's on Instagram, so is it true or real? Who knows? I had seen videos of things happening. Again, this is what happens when you have different cultures clash together. You have 20,000 people come into an area. What do you think is going to happen? Look at Great Britain right now with the migrants. This is just what happens when you have two different ideologies clashing together. This is what happens with bad policy. They should be vetted properly and moved around properly. There were too many people in one spot.

Brian Lehrer: Frank, thank you for your call. We appreciate it. Besides the debunking, can you, Emily from Politico New York, does your reporting indicate that there were Haitians? Frank describes them as aggressive. I don't know what looked aggressive to him, but was there a demonstration outside by Haitian New Yorkers?

Emily Ngo: Yes, there was a counter-protest, a counter-demonstration. Some of the Democratic leaders in the area, including Nassau County Democratic chair, who also is the Democratic chair for the state, Jay Jacobs, maybe several dozen people, some of the local elected officials, who wanted to make sure that Haitians and Black and Latino residents in the area that their voices were representative, just in contrast to what Trump and his supporters may say about them. In terms of aggression, I don't know about that.

There's this claim that I hear very often from Trump and his supporters about paid agitators. I don't necessarily know that that's the whole truth as well, but there certainly was a showing outside the rally of people who wanted to note that Vance and Trump's rhetoric on Haitian migrants on this debunked claim is unacceptable. The DNC, their counter-programming, was to have a mobile billboard that highlighted what they believe Trump and Vance are attacking as a threat to in vitro fertilization, so a couple more minor efforts to make sure that there was another message out there to contrast what the former president may be saying inside.

Brian Lehrer: A lot of reactions in our texts to that last caller, as you can imagine.

Emily Ngo: Yes. I'll say if I'm able to, what Frank was saying in terms of their-- what he was alleging that there's some truth in some cultures to the pet eating claims that are coming out of Springfield, Ohio, that's a line that Vance and Trump and some more politically moderate House Republicans, including Marc Molinaro in the Hudson Valley, have picked up too, saying that this is a way we've gotten the news media to pay attention to the pressure that the immigration system has put on certain communities. Molinaro told me in an interview to Google Manlius, which was a situation last year where the village swan who had been beloved was taken and police said eaten. This is something that has spiraled.

Molinaro, interestingly, it was a split screen to me because Mike Lawler, two districts to the south of him, had made sure through a statement, in part because he represents a large Haitian community, to call on his Republican colleagues to tamp down on the rhetoric and check where the claims may be from. It was a pretty mild rebuke, and it didn't point out anyone by name, but he took the step, a very rare one. I don't think anyone else among the House Republicans has done so to say, let's stop with this debunk claim, whereas Molinaro is digging in.

Brian Lehrer: Listener writes, "Hey, don't forget, Americans eat birds too." Few referring to the caller's claim of a culture clash. One listener writes, "Culture clash is dog whistle for racism. Call is racist." Ed in Yonkers is also calling about that notion. Ed, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Ed: Yes, hello. It's just so such a shocking admission by your last caller that the abject ignorance of-- if he lives in Long Island, he's right near New York City, which is a shining example of not cultures clashing but how-- There have been certainly trouble over the years of New York City's existence between different groups coming from different places, but even within the same group having different points of view on topics, so that's not a problem. What he fails to see is the much bigger, more powerful story of how all these different cultures have not only clashed but come together to create one of the greatest cities greatest progress.

It's not just New York City, it's the entire nation. This notion, and they bite on this like red meat of us and them, which is just nonsense. Shame on him. It's a crying shame that people who have benefited from this from all these years still leap towards the garbage that's spewed from the mouths of people like JD Vance and Donald Trump to divide and not unite us. It's the United States of America. That's the goal, not this nonsense. Shame on Frank for not understanding his own history, these claimed patriots who don't know their own history and how we got to today.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Ed: Please, we have to nip that in the bud. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Listener writes, "I am a Lutheran pastor on Long Island who is part of Jobs with Justice, organizing calls." That's a group, Jobs with Justice. They had organizing calls to set up the counter-protest yesterday. "The organizers were working in collaboration with faith leaders and representatives throughout Long Island to ensure there was support for the Haitian community during a time of incredible discrimination. The caller was totally off base, calling them paid agitators. These were beautifully organized, peaceful protests." Emily, just as a fact-check, there's no evidence, or tell me if there is, that those people were paid to show up in protest outside the Coliseum last night.

Emily Ngo: There is no evidence that they were paid to show up in protest outside the Coliseum last night. They are organized by community groups, by labor groups, by local leaders, and they're not alone. They're in the Hudson Valley and Mike Lawler's district. There's a significant Haitian American population that has also come together to make sure that Americans know loud and clear that the claim out of Springfield is just a claim. There's no truth to that, that they are-- Even some people will say that there are illegal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, when in fact, a lot of the Haitian migrants there have come via TPS, which is legal.

That community in Ohio is now beset by bomb threats that have led to school closures and completely disrupted their way of life. One reason of many, why the pet-eating claim is so difficult for anyone to swallow, let alone discuss at length, is because at the heart of it is this racist trope that really the Republican top of ticket has embraced and has led. It's not as if they've moved on from it. They keep bringing it up, they keep mentioning it. It's hard for the vulnerable House Republicans down-ballot to move on even after they've staked out their positions, move on to the policy issues because Trump and Vance just aren't letting go.

Brian Lehrer: We heard from one caller who has bought in to that line of politicking by Trump and Vance. Do you have a sense of how representative that caller might be of the 16,000 people or so who were in the Coliseum last night?

Emily Ngo: I don't have the clear sense, but I will say, and this is a larger, more existential discussion, that just the last couple of years, maybe several years, just this has just been a time of confirmation bias where, say, you're a Trump supporter who will travel across states to go to his rallies, you're more likely to get your information from media sources that confirm your personal views than you are to listen or watch or read outlets that may reflect anything that would discount or disprove how you already feel. People are living in these silos.

One thing that caller, Frank, said that was somewhat encouraging was that he got in a conversation with a Haitian demonstrator, and it was a face-to-face interaction where they got to know each other as people and talk about this or that issue. That element of communication, of discourse, is now largely missing in a lot of the political debate today. That is what would make it so people see each other as people and not as just tropes.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Though some of our many texters are pushing back on what he said they found they had in common, which was criticizing the Clinton administration or the Clinton Foundation for things that they were responsible for that may be bad in Haiti. People saying that's a false claim too. I don't know what-- We don't have to go into the history of the Clintons in Haiti or the Clinton administration or foundation or what Haitians outside the Coliseum may have really been saying about that deeper history. Even that claim of where they found common ground is proving controversial among some of our listeners.

Just to come back to the Long Island congressional candidates, I should say, the Republican freshmen incumbents, has D'Esposito, has LaLota explicitly said what they think about Trump and Vance campaigning that way on these false claims?

Emily Ngo: Not explicitly, to my knowledge. One thing that they have that's really helped them is a true social post that the former president sent a day prior to the rally about bringing salt back. Salt is the state and local tax deduction that has been huge, like I said, on Long Island and other suburbs in highly taxed states. Trump's 2017 tax cut package capped that deduction at $10,000. It's a really, really big loss financially for a lot of families that these House members represent. With what Trump said, they were able to run with that and say, here is the leader of our party who is representing your interests.

When it came to the actual rally via Trump's mouth, it got only a passing mention. Democrats like Laura Gillen, who's running against D'Esposito, as well as John Avlon, who's running against LaLota, that race much less competitive, are making sure that people know that it was Trump himself who put a cap-- whose administration put a cap on salt. Thus, in this scenario, it's just another instance in which he may be arsonist and firefighter, but it's interesting to me that he didn't really linger on it when it came to his rally remarks.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. The salt, eliminating or limiting the state and local tax deduction, that was described at the time pretty widely as a blue state tax because there are a lot of people in New York and New Jersey and California, because of a combination of people's incomes and property taxes in these very Democratic states, who tend more than people in other states to have lost money as a result of capping the state and local tax deduction from your federal income taxes at $10,000. It was considered a Trump payback to blue states, wasn't it?

Emily Ngo: Yes, exactly. This is one of the reasons it passed in the way it did is it's these states, the notion that these states are wealthier, that the residents who live there, the voters who live there, don't need another break of this sort. Now that we have the path to the House majority running through states like California and New York, it's been pushed to the fore again, and certainly an issue that Democratic members of Congress, including Tom Suozzi, want to keep at the front of the conversation because it's something that will drive people to the polls to vote one way or the other or to split their tickets on.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Despite these controversies recently, we looked at the social media feeds of D'Esposito and LaLota, who were there last night. They were certainly hugging Trump on social media. D'Esposito posted, "President Trump just finished his rally in my home, New York 4, fourth congressional district. One thing is clear. If we're going to get our country back on track, we need all hands on deck."

If that's an issue for swing voters in that district, how close he is continuing to hue to Trump, whether that's good by your lights or bad by your lights, he's doing it. Same thing, LaLota for Congress, their feed, "Huge gathering at Nassau Coliseum last night of hardworking Long Islanders who love America and want to know that our best days are still ahead of us." Obviously, they're not distancing themselves despite the way the coverage of and the polls in the presidential race seem to be going right now. Let's take another call. David in Great Neck, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Good morning, Brian. Well, I'm not a pollster, but I can certainly tell you where I live, in the village of Great Neck, Trump is the overwhelming favorite. You see the lawn signs. The mayor, who's from Iran, is all for him, and I'm sure he was at the rally last night. I think there's tremendous sentiment for Trump. However, we have the south side of Great Neck that [unintelligible 00:36:32] Thomaston and [unintelligible 00:36:34], that remains pretty Democratic. I know that there's support for Harris and Walz down there, but it does strike me at least that Harris's candidacy has strengthened the Democratic ticket here and should help out. Also will help Tom Suozzi, who's running for reelection against a Republican who's totally unknown.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you very much. Let me follow up with you with one question. Why do you think Trump is popular in those parts of Great Neck that you're citing where you live?

David: Oh, well, because there's been a huge demographic shift here. The north side of Great Neck, for instance, has two mayors from Iran, Village of Great Neck and the village of Kings Point. The village of Saddle Rock has a mayor from Morocco. These are all fanatically right wing guys and Republicans. They reflect the population up here because there's been a huge influx of people from Iran and also very orthodox Jewish people. As you know, they are right wing.

Similarly, Brian, the five towns which used to be democratic, say, 50 years ago, has become completely Republican. The majority leader of the Nassau County legislature, Kopel, he's from there. It just represents demographic shifts. That's what has happened.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Sunny in lower Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sunny.

Sunny: Hi. I just wanted to push back on something that the caller from Long Island said that you didn't respond to when the caller said, as a matter of fact, that Vietnamese eat dogs. I just want to point out something. When you let stuff like that just fly, it harms people like me. During COVID, I was physically assaulted. I was verbally attacked even while I was volunteering as a physician [unintelligible 00:38:37].

Many of the attacks were things like, do people eat anything? Of course, will cause COVID. I was chased on a street corner and told to go back to my country where we eat rats. Yes, in some cultures, they eat things that people in America are unfamiliar with and maybe some animals because culturally it's different, but that man didn't mean it in a way that was understanding. It was meant in a way to dehumanize us, meaning immigrants, especially immigrants who look different.

In the past, it was East Asians. When I was in elementary school, I was the only-- I lived in a small town. We're the only Asian families. The food thing was the most common talk used to embarrass me and humiliate me. People in classrooms will point at me and say, "If your dog is missing, Sunny's family ate it." Please, do not let that kind of racism just fly. I expect better [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: Well, I apologize. There were so many statements that were false in that call to fact-check. I didn't get to every single one. You're right, I didn't respond to that one, so I'm glad you called, Sunny.

Sunny: Thank you for listening to me.

Brian Lehrer: Pete in Norwalk, Connecticut, you're on WNYC. Hi, Pete.

Pete: Hey, Brian. Good to hear you. Good show. I live close to Duchess County. I moved back from California, and all my friends have changed and are fans of Trump. All over in Putnam County as well, everyone I went to high school with, and it all comes down to, I've been researching this, it's all about race and immigrants and the blow-ups. I was talking to someone walking my dog the other day. I said, "How're you doing?" She said, "Great, except for the libtards and all the crime in New York City." I said, "Man, I think you're wrong about the stats of New York City. It's one of the safest cities." She's like, "No. People are killing people daily."

My other friend, he listens to podcasts and said he won't vote unless RFK is on the ballot, which he won't be, so he won't vote. That's another point. I wanted to say that only 62% of Americans vote. We have 40% of these people that are probably won't vote even though they're saying a lot of stuff. I just see racism. I moved up from Park Slope, Brooklyn, to Carmel, New York, 7th grade. The first thing I heard when I walked into the classroom was someone calling the one Black teacher we had in school the N-word. I had never heard that because I grew up in Brooklyn, and we had friends from everywhere in Park Slope.

It has to do with just not being around other races always. They have a fear of them. You know what I mean? There's a fear because of all the rhetoric garbage that people see on YouTube and this and that. It's really, to me, people can call me wrong, I think it's all about race just as much.

Brian Lehrer: Pete, thank you very much. Of course, you can hear the N-word in Brooklyn too, but I get your point about different places that aren't as diverse and things that settle in more easily. Emily, to that last caller's point about so many people in a place like Norwalk, Connecticut, that far from the city, saying their politics are being shaped by crime in the city even though, as the caller points out, as Mayor Adams certainly was boasting last week, the number of shootings in Brooklyn in August was at a record low from when the time records started being kept. Also, robberies on the subways, similar record low for the month of August, so that takes hold.

The idea that the immigrants are coming to eat everybody's lunch in a place where there probably aren't even a lot of immigrants. Those become the defining issues. In your coverage of Long Island, how big are those two things today? Certainly, crime was big in those Republican victories in 2022, the perception of crime at very least. Now, we see how Trump is running. He did it at the Coliseum in Nassau last night and does it over and over again, even not just on the lies about Haitian immigrants. It's over and over again. It's the border, it's immigration, it's keeping these people out who are destroying our country. I think I saw a clip where he used that phrase again last night. Is this the most salient issue on Long Island?

Emily Ngo: It is certainly on western Long Island, closer to New York City. It's not just crime the way it was in 2022. It's now this scary conflation of all the unknowns and all the threats that could be in all the one video clip, one statistic out of New York City that makes it even scarier when it's cherry-picked and when it's presented without context. It becomes the issue is not just one issue and it's not detailed and it doesn't have context, like I said, but it becomes like this greater monster that's used against the Democratic Party by Republicans about crime and immigration, legal immigration, migration, border security, gang violence, everything that gets melded into one, into just a scary fireball.

Brian Lehrer: How do you see, as we wrap up this segment, these campaigns in the Long Island swing districts, the Hudson Valley swing districts, playing out between now and Election Day, or when early voting starts in New York? Is it mostly going to be the Republicans are talking about those issues, the Democrats are talking about abortion rights and democracy, and they're not responding to each other? Or, I guess one thing I'm thinking is, do the Democrats see an opportunity to woo swing voters because of the falseness and sense of being extreme in the cat ladies and all of that, that a lot of people might perceive the Trump campaign to be running on?

Emily Ngo: One theme I see emerging very potently, specifically, and especially in two of the congressional races that are more competitive, which is the Molinaro-Riley race and the D'Esposito-Gillen race, is that Gillen and Riley, the Democrats, have really been proactive on border security and adapted the playbook that Suozzi won on, which is to note that the Republicans, as much as they'll talk about border security, have rejected the bipartisan border deal that Trump had discouraged as well.

Democrats in some of these swing districts, beyond just talking about abortion, which the party at large believes to be a winning issue and could well be a winning issue, are going to lengths and going way out of their way to step onto and be a known presence on what conventionally would be Republican territory when it comes to border security.

Brian Lehrer: Emily Ngo writes the New York Playbook newsletter for Politico. Thank you for joining us.

Emily Ngo: Thank you.

 

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