Donald Trump will never be done with New York.

Donald Trump Will Never Be Done With New York

Sunday’s rally at Madison Square Garden, the self-styled “world’s most famous arena,” is a remarkable gambit, even by the former president’s standards — and a show of force.

Former President Donald J. Trump in Harlem in April.Credit...Anna Watts for The New York Times

Matt FlegenheimerMaggie Haberman

By Matt Flegenheimer and Maggie Haberman

The seven-decade marriage between Donald J. Trump and New York City, like all of his most volatile relationships, was never going to end quietly.

Rejection at the ballot box would not be the final word. Decampment to Florida — another septuagenarian Manhattanite in nominal retirement down south — would not disappear him in earnest.

Felony convictions? Reconcilable differences, it seems, for one evening anyway.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump is bringing his presidential campaign to Madison Square Garden, the brashest stop in a final election stretch that has showcased the race-baiting, bravado and grievance-soaked distortions that defined much of his New York life and have only been amplified since he left.

The appearance is a remarkable gambit even by his standards — a show of force at “the world’s most famous arena,” to use the venue’s own Trumpian superlative.

More than anything, though, it is a reminder, a provocation, a warning: New York will never be rid of him entirely.

And he will never be done with New York.

“To him,” said George Arzt, a veteran of city politics who first met Mr. Trump in the 1970s, “this is a conquest.”

If recent years have doubled as a series of faceoffs between the former president and his former city — the voters versus Mr. Trump, the local politicians versus Mr. Trump, The People v. Mr. Trump — this election stands as perhaps the eternal tiebreaker.

Mr. Trump’s defeat would not end his winding arc with New York, but it would make it easier for the city to banish him from thought at least occasionally.

His victory, by contrast, would position him once more as the vengeance-seeking specter idling above the skyline, a keeper of federal dollars that the city needs and of mental ledgers that he would never wipe clean as president.

“I have been treated very badly by the political leaders of both the city and state,” Mr. Trump said in 2019, announcing himself a permanent resident of Florida (primarily for tax reasons, people close to him say). “I hated having to make this decision, but in the end it will be best for all concerned.”

For much of Mr. Trump’s pre-presidency life, his social calendar could read as a guided tour of estimable New York landmarks.

The seven-decade marriage between Donald J. Trump and New York City, like all of his most volatile relationships, was never going to end quietly.

Rejection at the ballot box would not be the final word. Decampment to Florida — another septuagenarian Manhattanite in nominal retirement down south — would not disappear him in earnest.

Felony convictions? Reconcilable differences, it seems, for one evening anyway.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump is bringing his presidential campaign to Madison Square Garden, the brashest stop in a final election stretch that has showcased the race-baiting, bravado and grievance-soaked distortions that defined much of his New York life and have only been amplified since he left.

The appearance is a remarkable gambit even by his standards — a show of force at “the world’s most famous arena,” to use the venue’s own Trumpian superlative.

More than anything, though, it is a reminder, a provocation, a warning: New York will never be rid of him entirely.

And he will never be done with New York.

“To him,” said George Arzt, a veteran of city politics who first met Mr. Trump in the 1970s, “this is a conquest.”

If recent years have doubled as a series of faceoffs between the former president and his former city — the voters versus Mr. Trump, the local politicians versus Mr. Trump, The People v. Mr. Trump — this election stands as perhaps the eternal tiebreaker.

Mr. Trump’s defeat would not end his winding arc with New York, but it would make it easier for the city to banish him from thought at least occasionally.

Write by Mustanur.