For years now, right-wing media and conservative politicians have framed New York City as a Democratic-run “hellhole” full of violent migrant criminals and homeless drug addicts clogging up the streets in a zombified state.
Now that Donald Trump’s hush-money trial is taking place in lower Manhattan and has brought an intense media spotlight with it, many in the MAGAverse are learning that the Big Apple isn’t exactly the post-apocalyptic wasteland they’ve been led to believe.
During the opening day of the ex-president’s criminal trial on Monday, Brian Glenn—a host for the aggressively pro-Trump streaming platform Right Side Broadcasting Network and MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s paramour—wandered the streets near the courthouse with his camera in tow.
While speculating about the jury selection and how Trump faces an uphill climb with the largely Democratic base of New York, Glenn suddenly admitted that the city wasn’t quite what he expected based on what he’d been fed by conservative media.
In a clip flagged by journalist Jacqueline Sweet, Glenn noted that he and his crew had driven in from Philadelphia on Sunday and spent the day “exploring” New York and came to the stunning realization that the city was fairly peaceful.
“I gotta say, I thought I would see more [of a] homeless situation here,” he said. “I thought I would see a little more chaos on the streets than, um, from what I’ve been told. And I didn’t see as much as I thought I would.”
The MAGA pundit went on to speculate that New York City Mayor Eric Adams may have “cleaned up certain parts of the city” in anticipation of the press coverage Trump’s trial would bring, adding that Adams could have “shifted” undesirable elements to “other parts of the city.”
While Glenn said he didn’t see homeless people sheltering in lower Manhattan, he did claim he’d noticed some “people with mental illness walking the street” and “acting crazy.” Again, though, he pointed out this wasn’t “to the degree I was told was here,” adding this was a “good thing” if you are living in New York. “It looks like they’re trying to clean this city up a little bit,” he stated.
The RSBN host, perhaps looking to continue to portray the city as frightening to his pro-Trump audience, later speculated about the immigration status of brown and Black men he’d observed while traveling around New York.
“We’ve often seen stories of migrants that have been shipped to New York City and all across this country and I did see, in pockets, large groups of Hispanic males—a majority, almost 100 percent Hispanic males,” he proclaimed. “And I’ve also seen a lot of people who have come from West Africa and northern Africa in just packs, if you would.”
In the end, though, Glenn reiterated that he did not see huge droves of homeless people in Manhattan. “From what I can see, it looks like it’s a little better than it was,” he concluded.
While Fox News continues to harp on the supposed crime problem in the city, even though violent crime rates are plunging not just in New York but across the country, the network has also taken to dismissing the improving safety by citing the so-called “migrant crime” crisis and “homeless people bothering people” in the city.
In recent weeks, besides misidentifying city residents as supposed migrant shoplifters, the conservative cable giant has sparked a moral panic about homeless migrants “invading your home” in New York and squatting.