Former President Donald Trump made a bizarre appearance at a cryptocurrency-themed bar in Greenwich Village on Wednesday—where he signed autographs and handed out what he dubbed as “crypto burgers.”
“These suckers are good, too,” the former president said as he handed out burgers, in a strange moment captured during a Fox News live broadcast. “This is a crypto burger… actually you should name them—name them Bitcoin and a crypto,” Trump said.
Trump was surrounded by a gaggle of reporters and a crew of crypto enthusiasts at PubKey, a small bar in a West Village basement less than a block away from New York University dorms. His youngest son, Barron, began classes down the street at NYU’s Stern School of Business earlier this month.
The visit to his deep-blue hometown of New York City comes amid slumping swing-state polling for the former president. A new Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday showed Harris widening her lead in the crucial states of Pennsylvania and Michigan by over five points. Other recent polling, including a more favorable NYT/Siena poll released last week, still shows the two candidates neck-and-neck in a number of key swing states.
The former president made a stop in Manhattan before traveling to Long Island for a rally at Nassau Coliseum.
Spencer Platt
The bar reposted footage on social media of Trump fumbling with a device and scanning a QR code before declaring he became the first president or ex-president to ever make a transaction with Bitcoin.
“I think it’s a great place, I just made the first transaction in Bitcoin,” Trump told the crowd of what he called “crypto maniacs” to cheers and rapturous applause.
It was not immediately clear whose wallet Trump used for the transaction, or how much Bitcoin was exchanged. Bitcoin transactions are listed on a public ledger, but are anonymous unless the user reveals their wallet address.
The former president, who once said that Bitcoin “seems like a scam,” has made a U-turn and gone all-in on cryptocurrency in recent months. Trump spoke at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, made an appearance on a cryptocurrency broadcast on Monday, and has been touting a new crypto venture launching with the help of his sons, Don Jr., Eric, and Barron.
On Monday, he also bragged about his youngest son’s knowledge of cryptocurrency. “Barron’s a young guy, but he knows it. He talks about his wallet, he’s got four wallets or something.”
Trump also told reporters at the bar he was bullish on winning the Empire State in November.
“We’re here because we want to win New York, and I think that’s gonna happen,” the former president said.
Trump has yet to carry the state of his birth in a presidential election, but still has made highly publicized campaign appearances in the Empire State in the past—including a well-attended rally in the Bronx earlier this year. He is set to speak to a large crowd at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island later on Wednesday night.
Most polls taken in New York since Harris launched her campaign in July have the Democratic nominee winning the state by over 10 points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregator.
