Diehard MAGA fans were seen gathering outside Madison Square Garden just before sunrise ahead of Donald Trump’s big rally in New York City.
The sold out event will see roughly 20,000 Trump fans flock to the Big Apple – just nine days before what could be the closest presidential election in history as Trump and Kamala Harris are virtually tied in every poll.
Dozens of devoted Republicans were seen sporting red ‘Make America Great Again’ baseball hats as they lined up on the corner of 33rd and 6th Avenue of America early Sunday morning in predominantly-liberal New York City.
An array of Trump merch, including shirts, jackets, large billboards, and a trailer filled with flags – donning the Republican nominees’ face and name – surrounded the venue as the streets lit up in red, white and blue.
A heavy police presence also gathered as groups of NYPD officers were seen outside MSG accompanied by large police vehicles and multiple patrol cars.
One photo from the early hours of the morning showed a massive line of supporters outside of the arena 12 hours before the event.
Seas of Make America Great Again hats started to gather near the event space in Midtown Manhattan – where a billboard lit up with Trump’s face, alongside the words ‘Dream Big Again.’
One man – who painted his face in red, white, and blue – stood alongside fellow Trump supporters donning American flag scarves and hats on the chilly fall morning.
While New York is a solidly blue state, the Big Apple is still Trump’s original hometown and where the billionaire started his business empire several decades ago.
Although many are excited to see the 45th president at the iconic arena, Democrats have slammed his venue selection as they try to paint him as a ‘dictator’ in the days before the election.
Just this week, Hillary Clinton made an extraordinary claim that Trump chose to host the massive rally at Madison Square Garden to ‘reenact’ a Nazi event that took place there 85 years ago.
The former Secretary of State said Trump is seeking to ‘reenact’ the Nazi rally that took place in the Big Apple venue just over six months before the start of World War II.
‘You know, one other thing that you’ll see next week is Trump actually reenacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939,’ Clinton said in an interview with CNN on Thursday evening.
She went on: ‘Neo-Nazis, fascists, in America were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany. So I don’t think we can ignore it.’
It comes on the heels of Harris calling Trump a ‘fascist’ after his former Chief of Staff John Kelly accused him of being a fan of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., who will be attending the MSG rally, told DailyMail.com Clinton’s comments are ‘disgusting’ and ‘pathetic.’
‘It just shows you why people rejected Hillary Clinton [in 2016],’ he went on. ‘I mean that hateful, negative and divisive rhetoric is a thing of the past.
‘People are fed up with it, and it needs to end. And it should be rejected by everybody, you know, Republicans, Democrats alike.’
Usually in the last run-up to the election, the main candidates spend all their time in critical battleground states, of which New York is not one.
Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are the seven swing states essential to nab for a victory next month.
But Trump has courted New Yorkers’ votes this election cycle despite the state voting for Democrats every presidential election cycle since 1988.
This is not the first time Trump has visited NYC during his election as he held several events in the state, including at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island last month where he told his supporters: ‘We are going to win New York.’
‘New York is the media capital of the world,’ Trump campaign senior adviser Tim Murtaugh told DailyMail.com when describing the former president’s selection of his latest rally venue.
He added: ‘There’s gonna be more television cameras at this rally, probably than any rally to date, and it will be beamed directly into all of the battleground states.’
Madison Square Garden is a historic site that still holds massive concerts and events today.
Both Democratic and Republican National Conventions have been held at The Garden since the 1800s. MSG was the site of the 1976, 1980 and 1992 Democratic National Conventions and the 2004 Republican National Convention.
Adding to the lore of the arena, it was also the site of the famous birthday bash for John F. Kennedy in 1962 when Marilyn Monroe took stage to sing Happy Birthday to the then-president.
A stacked lineup of guests and speakers are expected to grace the stage or appear around the MSG arena on Sunday.
This includes members of Republican congressional leadership like Scalise, House Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik.
The massive rally comes just days after the presidential nominee joined comedian Joe Rogan on his podcast.
The 57-year-old comedian revealed that he finally had Trump on his show after the Republican was shot earlier this year.
During the wide-ranging interview, Rogan referenced Trump’s interview with fellow comedian Theo Von in August of this year.
Trump asked: ‘Is that why you called me to do this’, to which Rogan responded: ‘No. Once they shot you I was like, “He’s gotta come in here.”‘
Showing off the wound he received when gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on him in July of this year, Trump said: ‘It zicked right there.’
Rogan replies: ‘It healed up pretty f***ing good man’, to which Trump said it wasn’t like UFC fighters that Rogan also provides color commentary for.
Trump told Rogan that the attempt on his life and the scarring had made him a ‘tougher guy’.
During their three hour conversation, which amassed 300,000 in the first 30 minutes, Trump told Rogan he’s serious about scrapping federal income tax if he wins the race to the White House.
Rogan asked the Republican nominee: ‘Did you just float out the idea of getting rid of income taxes and replacing it with tariffs? Were we serious about that?’
He responded: ‘Why not, our country was the richest in the 1880s and the 1890s, a President who was assassinated named [William] McKinley he was the tariff king. He spoke beautifully of tariffs, his language was really beautiful.
‘We will not allow the enemy to come in and take our jobs, take our factories, take our workers and take our families unless they pay a big price. The big price is tariffs.’