Grant: I’m here today because I wanted to see for my own eyes what Donald Trump, Trumpism, and all the horrible, racist, antisemitic, and just problematic, overall problematic values that Donald Trump has pretty much installed into the DNA that is the American political system. 

Martone: I met him in 2016 at Fairfield University, and I have my own opinion of him that he’s a scholar and a gentleman.

WSN: What do you want to say to all the allegations against him, and saying about, you know, the hush money? 

Martone: The “dummy-rats,” I call them, “dummy-craps,” don’t want him to run again. They don’t want him in office so bad that they got to stoop to these levels to try to keep him from running, but he’s already running, so good luck with that.

Wu: The Democrat administration, Biden administration, leads this country toward socialism and eventually more toward communist dictatorship. We came from China. We know this is the way. This is not — like people here don’t understand what a communist is. We know communism is, what a communist is. That’s why we support Trump. 

WSN: This is really interesting because I’m also Chinese American myself, so —

Wu: You, you have to live in China, I guess. 

WSN: I did. I grew up in China. I grew up in China until I was 17. I’m from Shanghai, but yeah, I don’t talk about my opinions because I’m a journalist, so I just want to hear more about your opinions, you know. As immigrants, a lot of people might say that Trump is anti-immigrant or, you know —

Wu: Trump is not anti-immigrants at all. It’s just against illegal immigrants. It must be lawfully, orderly. That’s how the immigrants should be. 

WSN: Last thing, there is a lot of people here today who are protesting and who might say that Trump is a threat to our democracy and who thinks the allegations are real. What do you want to say to those people? 

Martone: Oh, I’m sorry that you, the people that are against Trump, are haters, and you need to find the love in your heart for this guy because he is, he’s here to support our country, raise our country. He didn’t even take, Trump didn’t even take, for one year, he took a pay check, and three years he donated his paycheck. What president ever did that? 

WSN: What do you want to say to all those Trump supporters here, ralliers here today?

Grant: I wish there was something I could say that would convince them that what they’re doing isn’t the right thing, that they are in the wrong. They’re on the wrong side of history. They’re on the wrong side of this narrative, but I don’t think there is anything I can say. But what I would try to say is I would try to help them understand. I would tell them stories about the poor, the immigrants who have been negatively affected, whose families have been destroyed because of Trump policies, the women who he’s assaulted personally, the women who feel like they aren’t able to speak up anymore because there’s millions of people advocating for a man who would do horrible, horrible things to them if given the chance. I would just tell them that it’s not just about him. America is diverse. It’s strong. It’s amazing. And that diversity is what makes us a better country, not what makes us worse. And Donald Trump is trying to tell us otherwise. And that’s the problem. So that’s what I would try to say. 

Merritt: I think this indictment opens the can of worms. That’s why he’s so mad today, because he has a number of the legal case in a number of different circuits throughout this country. And now they have the right to, you know, open up the cases and, you know, also indict him. I think he is going down. Like you can’t continue to grift folks for your entire life and think you could get away with it. Like, you’re going down baby. 

WSN: For Washington Square News, I’m Aria Young.

Contact Aria Young at [email protected]