Trump heading to Jersey Shore to rally ‘mega crowd’ in weekend break from hush money trial

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — After a long week in court, Donald Trump is heading to the Jersey Shore. And his campaign says he’ll be joined by “tens of thousands” of his friends.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, expects to draw what his team is calling a “mega crowd” to a Saturday evening rally in the southern New Jersey resort town of Wildwood. It will be held 150 miles (241 kilometers) south of the New York City courthouse where he has been forced to spend most weekdays sitting silently through his felony hush money trial.

The beachfront gathering is designed to serve as a show of force at a critical moment for Trump, a presidential candidate known for drawing huge crowds.

Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said the “tens of thousands” expected attendees would be a notable contrast to the number that typically show up for President Joe Biden’s political events, which Miller described as being only “eight circles, two of which are empty.”

Trump’s gathering in deep-blue New Jersey comes less than six months before Election Day.

The former president’s extraordinary legal woes, which include three other unrelated criminal cases, have emerged as a central focus of the campaign.

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