The media is screaming after the Trump MSG rally, but the arena’s history and first-hand accounts contradict the narrative

Much of the media has deflected interest in former President Trump’s historic Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, claiming it was a reflection of a Nazi rally at this famous site in the 1930s, despite the large number of Jewish participants and Israeli flags.

Thousands of Trump supporters packed the “World’s Most Famous Arena” to hear speeches from celebrities, including former first lady Melania Trump, before the former president took the stage. But instead of watching the GOP nominee draw a huge crowd in the middle of a blue city just nine days before the election, liberal pundits followed Vice President Kamala Harris’ playbook of calling Trump a fascist and comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

An MSNBC guest said Trump’s team cultivates “overt similarities to Nazism,” “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski called it a “weird Nazi-style white nationalist rally,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl called it an “extremely dark event,” and New The York Times called the rally “a carnival of grievance, misogyny and racism.” Philip Bump of the Washington Post. wrote a column arguing that the rally was a reflection of the pro-Nazi Garden rally of 1939.

However, participants suggested that Jewish, Black and Indian languages ​​were not typically spoken or pro-Israel messages conveyed at Nazi rallies.

TRUMP, GUESTS POWERHOUSE FILLED WITH ROCK MSG WITH HISTORIC RALLY

Former President Trump attended a historic Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. (Getty Images)

“I covered the rally and there was no hate in the building. It was… For lack of a better word… Exhilarating,” Fox News contributor Joe Concha wrote on X.

Participant Debra Lea went viral after the rally when she posted a video on social media defending it.

“I am a Jewish Republican from New York and I saw the mainstream media call it a ‘Nazi rally’ and it couldn’t be further from the truth. There were many Jews there like me. There were Israeli flags there and almost every speaker spoke about their commitment to maintaining U.S.-Israel relations,” Lea said.

“Not to mention all the Latinos for Trump, the gays for Trump, and almost every other group that would never be allowed in if this was actually a Nazi rally,” she continued. “Kamala Harris could literally bring Adolf Hitler onto her stage and the mainstream media wouldn’t call it a Nazi rally…their lies are in vain.”

Among the Jews present was Holocaust survivor Jerry Wartski, an Auschwitz survivor who called Trump compared to Hitler “the worst thing” he had ever heard has lived in the United States for 75 years.

MSNBC pointed out that a pro-Nazi rally was held here in 1939, even though MSG has been rebuilt several times, with the current addition only being completed in 1969. The facts didn’t stop the liberal network from declaring Trump’s event was “particularly chilling.” , because it took place in the same arena that once hosted supporters of “another fascist leader, Adolf Hitler.”

MSNBC even contrasted footage of a 1939 Nazi rally with Trump’s 2024 event.

Retired New York Police Department Inspector Paul Mauro called it “ridiculous” to equate the Trump rally with what happened at MSG in 1939.

“Does the fact that you played in this arena somehow make you the Nazi next to you? Let me tell you, for a Nazi rally, there were an awful lot of Israeli flags in that building,” Mauro said Monday on “America’s Newsroom.”

TRUMP AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN: ICONIC LOCATION HOSTED MULTIPLE CAMPAIGN MEETINGS CLOSE TO ELECTION DAY

MSG is the longtime home of the NBA’s New York Knicks and NHL’s New York Rangers, two of the most famous teams in their respective sports.

The garden has hosted four Democratic National Conventions, was the site of Marilyn Monroe’s historic birthday performance for President John F. Kennedy in 1962, and hosted important visits by Popes John Paul II in 1979 and Pope Francis in 2015. It also hosted events USO with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, the 1971 “Fight of the Century” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, and numerous charity events.

Music legend Billy Joel resided at MSG for years, it was the site of the inaugural WrestleMania in 1985 and was the long-time New York home of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Michael Jackson, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Phish, Jay Z, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Madonna, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, The Who, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Katy Perry, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Taylor Swift and Luke Bryan also played there.

“These amateur historians are disregarding every concert, Knicks game and Democratic convention so they can simply smear Trump and the Republicans with a Nazi brush,” NewsBusters editor-in-chief Tim Graham told Fox News Digital. “They imagine that honoring America’s founding and talking about putting America first is racist, supporting mass deportations is racist, and taking a tough approach to crime is racist. “Almost everything conservatives stand for is considered fair game when it comes to accusations of racism.”

“These same people have a fudge when Trump calls Kamala Harris a ‘Marxist’ or a ‘communist,’” Graham continued. “‘Independent Fact Checkers’ side with Democrats, but have no problem throwing the F-word (fascist) at Republicans.”

LAURA INGRAHAM: Trump MSG RALLY EVEN FDR AND REAGAN’S POPULISM

Former US president and Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, October 27, 2024. (Photo: ANGELA WEISS/AFP) (Photo: ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images) (Getty Images)

Stop Antisemitism founder and executive director Liora Rez also sharply criticized comparisons to Hitler.

“Comparing a presidential candidate – or his supporters – to the Nazi regime is a dangerous trivialization of the real horrors committed by Hitler. He shames the millions who were murdered and the brave ones who fought to end his tyranny,” Rez told Fox News Digital.

“Save the condemnation for the real Nazis,” Rez continued. “Connecting today’s Madison Square Garden rally with a Nazi event from almost a century ago is a reckless distortion of history.”

Conservative columnist Dustin Grage ridiculed this suggestion by sharing photos of historic MSG events.

Other notable speakers at Trump’s rally included Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, pro wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, tech billionaire Elon Musk, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s running mate Sen. J.D. Vance and television personality Dr. Phil McGraw.

Trump’s speech focused on, among other things, economy and the inflation spiral and “restoring the American dream,” including a crowd pledge to cut energy costs in half by January 2026 if re-elected. He also announced that if he wins next week’s election, he will cut costs for consumers and eliminate taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits.

Trump added that under his leadership, the Republican Party has become the “party of inclusion.”

“Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Evangelicals and Mormons, and they are all joining our cause in large numbers, larger than anyone has ever seen in this country, larger than has ever been seen in any country,” he said.

Madison Square Garden is the longtime home of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, two of the most famous teams in their respective sports. (Getty Images)

New York City Council Minority Whip Inna Vernikov attended the rally and stated that it was “totally contrary to what MSNBC is trying to sell you.”

“Our families were murdered like sheep during the Holocaust. The rally I went to was not a NO NAZI rally. It was an event filled to the brim with love for all Americans,” Vernikov wrote.

“The spirit of unity in the room was so palpable that people of all races, religions and ways of life gathered in joyful anticipation of a better future. Black or Latino, Jew, Muslim or Christian, it didn’t matter,” Vernikov continued. “We all had a place there because we all share a common goal: We all want to make this country a better place to live and restore prosperity and American pride.”

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, whose relatives died in the Holocaust, said on “The Ingraham Angle” Monday that he didn’t need to be told what the Nazis were really about.

“Most of my family died in the Holocaust. I have very few relatives left. That’s what Nazis are,” said Fleischer, a first-generation American whose mother fled the Nazis in 1939. “I don’t need Democrats to remind me of this, inventing these things, in creating our American policies, that the people who could defeat them, the people they don’t like because of domestic political problems, are fascists, are Nazis.”

He said Democrats making comparisons to Nazis as their closing argument in the election is the “stupidest” thing they can do politically.

“Morally, invoking Adolf Hitler in American political life against someone like Donald Trump, who is the essence of democracy, is morally reprehensible. He won the disputed primary. He may win a contested presidential election. This is a despicable thing that Democrats are doing. And I am here to say personally that it is wrong from a historical point of view, it is wrong from a factual point of view, in every sense of the word,” he added.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP