Trump spouts xenophobic conspiracy at Bronx rally that China is building migrant sleeper cell army: Live

Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial is approaching its final phase, with the 12-person jury soon set to determine the former president’s fate.

This trial has brought a parade of intriguing figures to New York, both inside and out of the courtroom — from the trial witnesses such as porn star Stormy Daniels and Mr Trump’s former “fixer” Michael Cohen to surprise visits from MAGA loyalists, including Colorado Rep Lauren Boebert and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

The Independent has been covering the historic trial live from the courthouse each day.

Ahead of closing arguments, senior reporter Alex Woodward and general news reporter Ariana Baio held a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” forum to answer your questions about the case:

John Bowden reports from Washington, DC:

US Attorney General Merrick Garland has taken the rare step of directly refuting a claim made by Donald Trump.

The AG appeared at a Thursday press conference in Washington, where he took a question from a reporter on the 2024 presidential candidate’s claim that FBI agents were “authorized” by Joe Biden to use “deadly force” against him when they raided his estate and resort at Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022.

MrTrump made the claim on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday after newly unsealed court filings showed that four additional classified documents were discovered in the former president’s bedroom in the months following the initial search.

Read on...

CNN’s Abby Phillip pressed Rep Byron Donalds about why he and other Trump allies continue to push bogus conspiracy theories about the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago after the former president refused to return classified documents.

Phillip was not going to let Rep Donalds get away with trying to change the subject...

Donald Trump was met with chants of “build the wall” on Thursday evening as he rehashed his anti-immigrant rhetoric during a campaign rally in the Bronx.

Speaking in Crotona Park in the South Bronx – a Democratic stronghold with a large Hispanic and Black population – the former president baselessly sought to paint migrants from China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other nations as a threat to the United States.

In a particularly xenophobic moment, he baselessly claimed that migrants are “building an army” to attack the US from inside its borders.

Gustaf Kilander reports:

How big was Donald Trump’s first rally in New York state in eight years?

Not yuge.

While there are supporters on social media claiming somewhere between 30,000-40,000 people showed up, they are either lying or being willfully misled.

For starters, the permit was for 3,500 people. Second, here’s an aerial shot, with Mr Trump on the stage and the local news report from which it was taken:

That’s a lot of green space left to fill.

The part of the Bronx in which Crotona Park sits is the tenth most Democrat constituency in the country.

US Rep Ritchie Torres was blunt about what he saw in the crowd that did attend, noting that many appeared to be “transplants” from outside the district.

An estimated 30,000 people showed up to see the former president at Wildwood on the Jersey Shore on May 11, though wild estimates circulated that the crowd was nearer 80,000-100,000. This turned out to be an estimate of the number of visitors to the town that day, not attendees of the rally.

Here’s more on Trump’s on-stage antics yesterday from James Liddell.

The late-night host has taken a deserved swipe at Trump over his aide carrying around a portable printer to quickly provide him with hard copies of flattering news articles about himself outside of his hush money trial.

Amelia Neath has the details.