Anti-Trump bands played, an elderly woman in a motorised wheelchair chanted, “No dictators, no Nazis, no Trump”, and a man wearing devil horns, cow pants and a G-string shouted into a megaphone as he walked along Eighth Avenue.

Another man, 53-year-old Christopher Crowe from Queens, yelled at a Trump fan to “f--- off back to Long Island”. He told this masthead: “I’m not very much into fascists, and they have no place in New York City, which is the greatest city in the world.”

Melissa Shelly, from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and her friend, Elaine Gardner, were among the Trump supporters trying to get inside the stadium late in the piece.

“I’m trying to get my country back, I’m done with this wokeism,” Shelly said, rattling off a range of conspiracy theories. She said she had to hide her views from her liberal New York friends.

“I’m a painter, so I just keep it out of the arts circles. They’re really a victim of groupthink, they don’t have an original thought in their brain.”

But Gardner said it wasn’t so bad being a Republican in a city of left-wingers. “As long as you’re friendly with them, they’ll be friendly with you,” she said.

“There’s only a few that are actually radical. There’s a lot of hidden Trump supporters. People just don’t want to say it. Here at the Trump rally, you can wear your hat, you can do all that.”

Trump’s provocative decision to hold the rally in New York – his old home and the liberal capital of a state he will not win – prompted days of commentary in the United States, particularly when former secretary of state Hillary Clinton claimed Trump was “re-enacting” a pro-Nazi rally held at Madison Square Garden in 1939.

“It may be a leap for some people … but please open your eyes to the danger that this man poses to our country because I think it is clear and present for anybody paying attention,” Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential election to Trump, said on CNN.

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz echoed that assessment while campaigning in Nevada, saying there was a “direct parallel” to the 1930s fascist rally. “Don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.”

Inside, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was also a former personal lawyer to Trump, falsely claimed that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was “on the side of the terrorists” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Attendees were also treated to a repertoire from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico — a US territory — “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean”. He also said Latinos “love making babies … there’s no pulling out, they don’t do that, they come inside – just like they did to our country”.

Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin posted a clip of the comments on his Instagram and wrote, in Spanish, “This is what they think of us.” Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said that the joke about Puerto Rico “does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

While Puerto Ricans are US citizens, residents of the island cannot vote in US general elections. However, millions of Puerto Ricans who have moved to the mainland United States can vote, and there is a large community in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

And while the jokes were instantly condemned as racist by commentators outside Madison Square Garden –inside, there was little commotion. Later, sacked Fox News anchor turned X-poster Tucker Carlson pumped up the crowd by praising Trump for having “the stones” to return to New York, claiming he had been hounded out of the city by its leadership.

“It’s like being thrown out of a bar,” Carlson said. But now Trump was “back in the city that produced him, with no embarrassment at all, in a room full of his friends”.

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Carlson also called Harris “a Samoan-Malaysian with low IQ”. In fact, she is the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, a former prosecutor and California attorney general, and the second-highest office holder in the country.

Hulk Hogan, Dana White and Elon Musk made brief appearances, as did Trump’s wife, Melania, in a relatively rare campaign appearance. Trump took to the stage after 7pm, saying he was happy to be “back in the city I love”, and then delivered what was largely his regular stump speech.

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Trump billed the event as a “celebration” of the campaign.

But as he spoke, the Democratic National Committee projected images on the outside walls of Madison Square Garden saying: “Trump = Unhinged”, “Trump = unfit” and “Trump praised Hitler”.

The stunt hammered home the Democrats’ key message as the campaign draws to a close.

“Donald Trump has grown increasingly unhinged in the final weeks heading into election day,” Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison said. “So much so that those who know Trump best are warning voters that he is dangerously unfit to lead.”

Commentator Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Republican senator John McCain, wrote on X the rally could backfire among moderate or undecided voters because it was “MAGA on steroids”.

“It’s a pretty significant and inconvenient demographic you actually need to win.”

With Farrah Tomazin

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