Trump ends rally at Madison Square Garden after surprise appearance by Melania: live updates on the election

Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden is over.

After his graduation, a live performance of “New York, New York” began. Trump stood on stage with former first lady Melania Trump during the song and extorted his approval of the singer throughout the song.

Immediately after “New York, New York” ended, “YMCA” began and Trump left the stage.

Donald Trump proposed a bill that would send people who burn the American flag to prison for a year.

Flag burning is a protected means of protest, and criminalizing it would mean restricting Americans' right to free speech – rights that people like Trump and his new pal Elon Musk often advocate for.

Donald Trump joked he wasn't “100 percent sure” his father was in heaven, but said if he were he would look down and wonder why people were trying to put him in prison.

“I am a good person,” emphasized Trump.

Trump claimed that Kamala Harris “lied” about working at McDonald's when she was younger, and he said that was why he “went to work” at McDonald's for a day.

In reality, Trump held a fry basket during a staged photo op at a McDonald's location that was closed for the day to facilitate the event.

Donald Trump hinted that he and House Speaker Mike Johnson have a “little secret” that he believes will help Republicans keep the House, but said he won't until after the election reveal.

Donald Trump spent several minutes talking about Elon Musk and how impressed he was with a Space X rocket. He claimed Musk's “dark MAGA” hat was the best-selling MAGA hat in the week following its debut.

Then he said he would let Robert F. Kennedy “go wild” on health issues but keep him away from the “liquid gold” – the oil and gas industry.

Trump then praised former first lady Melania Trump for having the “best-selling book in the universe” and admitted he was worried about what she would write about him in the book.

He continued to praise his family, including his youngest son Barron, whom he called the “King of the Internet.”

Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin urged Americans to vote for Kamala Harris after Tony Hinchcliffe, a MAGA podcaster who opened Donald Trump's rally on Sunday, called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash” and made vulgar and racist comments about Latinos made.

“This is what they think about us,” he wrote in Spanish to his 18.6 million Instagram followers. “Vote for @kamalaharris.”

He wasn't the only one upset by the podcaster's comments; Two Republican lawmakers representing Latinos also rejected his comments.

Rep. Jenniffer González-Colón, Puerto Rico's non-voting member of Congress and a Republican, called the comments “despicable, unwise and disgusting.”

She went on to say that there was “no place for such vile and racist comments like these.”

Senator Rick Scott and Representative Maria Salazar also criticized the comments in a statement.

“This rhetoric does not reflect the values ​​of the Republican Party,” Salazar wrote. “Puerto Rico sent more than 48,000 soldiers to Vietnam and received over 345 Purple Hearts. This courage deserves respect.”

Melania Trump took the stage at her husband's New York rally to Guns n' Roses' “Paradise City” and then launched into a dark but misguided diatribe about how bad things are in the Big Apple – and the rest of the country.

GnR frontman Axl Rose has spoken out against Donald Trump using the band's songs without permission in his public appearances.

“Hello Madison Square Garden!” The former First Lady initially called the metropolis “the undisputed industrial capital of the world, where giants of finance, fashion and entertainment come together.” New York is a “ruthless” city, Melania continued, apparently showing compassion with the audience about how “our lives are complicated even at the best of times.”

Donald Trump has once again used the phrase “enemy within” to describe an unnamed, unknown group of political opponents who he claims are secretly running the Democratic Party.

He said that Vice President Kamala Harris is “just a vessel” of the “radical left machine.”

Harris was largely rejected by progressive voters during her presidential campaign – a group generally considered further to the left than mainstream Democrats – and spent much of her professional life as a prosecutor.

Donald Trump claimed the US was “very close to World War III” and said the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 would not have happened if he had been president.

“All of these people would be alive,” Trump claimed.

He then turned to inflation, claiming that there was no inflation under his presidency. He said inflation was caused in part by too much government spending on the “Green New Scam” – referring to the Green New Deal – which is false.

Trump then suggested that Kamala Harris would lead the US into another war and baselessly suggested that conscription could be reinstated under her leadership.

There is no evidence that the draft will be reintroduced.

Trump said he “got along” with world leaders and claimed he told Russian President Vladimir Putin not to “go into Ukraine.”