Trump asked New Yorkers, “What do you have to lose by voting for me?”

When former President Donald Trump addressed a supportive crowd in Uniondale, New York, he posed a provocative question about what voters in the state stood to lose by casting their ballots for him. The audience responded with enthusiastic cheers.

“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?” he urged the cheering attendees.

In stark contrast, California Democratic Representative and Senate hopeful Adam Schiff responded with a cautionary 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,” Schiff remarked.

Author Goldie Taylor succinctly replied, “Everything.”

In an additional post, Taylor reflected on the broader implications, stating, “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.”

SV Date, a White House correspondent for HuffPost, posed the question, “Our democracy?” in response to Trump’s claims.

Trump proceeded to enumerate several reasons why New Yorkers should support the Republican nominee, a choice that has remained elusive for the party since Ronald Reagan’s re-election in 1984 against former Vice President Walter Mondale.

“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?” Trump commented, emphasizing what he described as a crisis affecting communities.

He argued that various forms of violent crime were on the rise, specifically pointing to incidents of robbery and assault.

Trump claimed, “The trains and subways are squalid,” stating that there’s a significant risk that a child riding the subway may never return home.

He criticized the treatment of migrants, saying, “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.”

This rhetorical approach of asking voters what they have to lose is not new for Trump. He has previously used this phrase while engaging with Black voters and while promoting untested solutions during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Back in 2016, this line found its way into his speeches targeting Black communities, where he argued that Democrats, particularly Hillary Clinton, were neglecting their needs. In a rally held in Dimondale, Michigan, he stated, “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?”

In April 2020, during the onset of the Covid pandemic, Trump revisited this phrase while endorsing hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for the virus. “What do you have to lose? Take it,” he urged. “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.”

At that time, Trump described the drug as a “gift from heaven.”