Trump asked New Yorkers ‘what have you got to lose’ by voting for him. The answers came thick and fast

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When former President Donald Trump asked a loyal crowd of supporters in Uniondale, New York on Long Island what the state has to lose by voting for him, he faced nothing but cheers. Online, however, it was a different story.

“I say to the people of New York, with crime at record levels, with terrorists and criminals pouring in, and with inflation eating your hearts out, vote for Donald Trump. What the hell do you have to lose?” Trump asked the cheering crowd.

California Democratic Representative and Senate candidate Adam Schiff came up with a list: “What do we have to lose? Years of progress on climate, the return of high-tech manufacturing, our standing around the globe, the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Social Security, our democracy. Let’s not find out.”

Author Goldie Taylor simply said: “Everything.”

In a separate post, she added: “We were always coming to this moment— whether Trump or some other candidate— when a nominee for POTUS is chiefly and unapologetically fueled by white nationalism.”

“Our democracy?” SV Date, HuffPost White House correspondent wrote.

The former president listed a number of reasons why New Yorkers should back the Republican nominee, something they haven’t done since Ronald Reagan won re-election against Jimmy Carter’s former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984.

Donald Trump dug up an old rhetorical device to ask the crowd what they have to lose by voting for him ( REUTERS )

“We have horrible, disgusting, dangerous, filthy encampments of junkies and homeless people living in places that our children used to play Little League Baseball, which they don't get to play very much anymore, do they?” he asked.

He claimed several categories of violent crime were up, including robbery and assault.

“The trains and subways are squalid,” he said, claiming that there’s a 75 percent chance that a child riding the subway may never be seen again.

“Businesses are fleeing, the mobs of illegal migrants are being put up in luxury hotels at your expense, while our great veterans live on the freezing or steaming sidewalks right outside the main entrance, the way the migrants enter their hotel,” Trump said.

The former president has used the expression “what do you have to lose” in the past, specifically when addressing Black voters and when pushing unproven remedies for Covid-19.

Already in 2016, Trump was using the line when making his pitch to Black voters, saying at the time that Democrats and Hillary Clinton were taking them for granted.

Speaking in Dimondale, Michigan, Trump said at the time: “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed – what the hell do you have to lose?”

“What do you have to lose? Take it,” Trump said in April 2020 at the early onset of the Covid pandemic as he promoted a malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, as a treatment for the virus. “I really think they should take it, but it’s their choice, it’s their doctor’s choice or the doctor’s in the hospital, but hydroxychloroquine, try it, if you’d like.”

Trump claimed at the time that the drug would be a “gift from heaven.”