New York: US President-elect Donald Trump has triumphantly returned to Madison Square Garden (MSG) with his entourage of high-level nominees and advisers to watch a mixed martial arts championship.
He was welcomed to shouts of “USA, USA!” that was the rallying cry of his campaign.
The visit to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was his first appearance before a mass audience since winning the election, and it was dominated by a crowd of mixed martial arts fans that reflects the most hard-core of his supporters, young men, although people of other ethnicities in the crown.
He was accompanied by Tulsi Gabbard, his nominee for director of national intelligence, and his leaders for the proposed Office of Government Efficiency, Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary pick, and his now ever-present adviser Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire entrepreneur, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the pharmaceutical multimillionaire.
His sentencing had been set in the city on Tuesday for his conviction in the “hush money” case, but the hearing has been postponed to November 26 as his lawyers, local prosecutors, and the judge grapple with the constitutional and political implications of sentencing a man who will take over as President in about two months.
Trump held a massive rally at the MSG the week before the election, which was an omen for his broadening base among minorities and solidifying it among the working class.
Even though Vice President Kamala Harris prevailed in the deep blue city, Trump increased his share of votes by 7 percent to 30 percent from the 23 percent he had won against President Biden in 2020 – a trend across the country that vaulted him to the presidency in terms of the popular votes as well as the Electoral College votes.
The UFC champion, Jon Jones, presented Trump with his championship belt and told the roaring crowd, “I also wanna say a big, big thank you to President Donald Trump for being here tonight”.
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Trump did not speak at the event.
Mixed martial arts is a virtually no-holds-barred, crude type of fighting where contestants can resort to boxing, wrestling, and martial arts.
Jones won with a knock-out kick to his rival Stipe Miocic.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s nominee for White House director of communications, had held the same post at the UFC.
The visit to New York was his second outing from his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, where he has been working on his transition.
On Wednesday, he went to Washington for a meeting with Biden.
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–IANS
