reported by Taylor Robinson and Camille Baker for the New York Times
Police officers swarmed a cluster of anti-Trump protesters near the United Nations building in Manhattan on Tuesday morning, ahead of the president’s speech to diplomats and world leaders at the General Assembly.
Dozens of demonstrators were milling in the streets near the U.N. roughly an hour before President Trump’s speech. About three dozen protesters, according to an advocacy group that helped organize the demonstration, sat on the ground at the intersection of 42nd Street and Second Avenue, further snarling traffic during what is known as Gridlock Week in Midtown East.
The protesters held signs that read, “Trump is the emergency” and “pro-democracy anti-Trump.”
Police officers wearing bicycle helmets then zip-tied the hands of the sitting protesters behind their backs and ushered them out of the roadway. More anti-Trump demonstrators were arrested nearby, according to the advocacy group Rise and Resist, which formed after Mr. Trump’s election to his first term in 2016.
Alexis Danzig, a Rise and Resist member, stood in a line with other arrested protesters as they waited to be loaded into a police van. Ms. Danzig, her hands tied behind her back, said she had traveled from her home in Saugerties, N.Y., to protest Mr. Trump’s speech.
“Other countries need to know that people who reside in the United States do not approve of Trump,” Ms. Danzig, 64, said from behind a police barrier. “Trump is a menace to democracy everywhere.”
Another protester, Barry Spaulding, said he had been motivated to attend the protest in part because of the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show, which was pulled off the air last week after comments he made about the man accused of killing the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. (Mr. Kimmel’s show will resume on Tuesday, ABC announced Monday.)
“I thought, especially with what’s happened this week, I better use my right to free speech before we lose it,” said Mr. Spaulding, 73, who lives in Manhattan. He carried a sign that said, “Fascist,” accompanied by a photo of Mr. Trump’s head.
Naomi Braine, who coordinated some of the protest’s logistics for Rise and Resist, said the organization had taken to the streets to encourage U.N. member countries “to block Donald Trump, to turn their backs upon him, to no longer treat him as a valid member of the international community.”
Mx. Braine, 61, who uses they/them pronouns, said it was important that world leaders had recognized Palestinian statehood in a summit on Monday.
Mr. Trump “disagrees” with the recognition, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced on Monday.