Sixteen thousand people erupted into rapture when Donald J. Trump walked into the Prudential Center in Newark at 10 p.m. Saturday to attend an Ultimate Fighting Championship match. He stayed until the grisly end, at 1:15 a.m.
It was his first public outing since being convicted on 34 felony counts two days earlier. He walked out to Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass,” a rock-rap trailer park anthem that samples Metallica’s “Sad But True” and has become the unofficial soundtrack of Mr. Trump’s quest to recapture the White House.
Chosen one, I’m the living proof
With the gift of gab, from the city of truth
I jabbed and stabbed and knocked critics back
A moment after Mr. Trump took his seat, the stadium took up a spontaneous chant of President Biden’s name preceded by an expletive.
And then, even louder: “We love Trump!”
After days holed up in the city that convicted him, Mr. Trump had designed his appearance on Saturday as a reset — cheaper than staging a campaign rally and possibly just as effective in casting him as a persecuted hero. His campaign quickly cut his triumphant march into the arena into a video that it used to launch his new TikTok account, showing him striding into the arena, waving and smiling for selfies, alongside Dana White, the chief executive of the U.F.C.
The two men, who have a long history, sat next to each other ringside. Behind them were Mr. Trump’s entourage: his son and daughter-in-law, Eric and Lara; his son-in-law Michael Boulos, who is married to Tiffany Trump; a small group of donors; his spokesman, Steven Cheung, who previously worked for the U.F.C.; and, as ever, Mr. Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, who has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of conspiring with Mr. Trump to obstruct the government’s attempt to retrieve classified documents.
“It takes a lot of balls for someone to walk into a big event like this, after all the stuff he’s been through for the last three days,” said Dom Loranger, a 17-year-old who said he worked at the Three Monkeys bar in Northeast Philadelphia.
“He’s kind of eating up the whole crowd,” said Sean Devinney, 26, who works in business operations and lives in Delaware County, Pa. “I feel like we’re watching him almost — he’s a fan favorite.” What did he make of Mr. Trump’s conviction? “I don’t know anything about it.”
The crowd was diverse in every way — ethnicity, age, nationality — except gender. It was almost entirely male. Fathers and sons. Men on their own. Men in suits. Men in shorts. The precious few women attending appeared to be on dates. They also seemed to like Mr. Trump.
“I think he’s a good dude,” said Shannon Hill, 41, who lives in Jackson, N.J., and works in general contracting.
Mr. Trump was convicted by a jury that heard evidence that he had falsified business records to cover up a hush-money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels over a tryst with her years earlier while his wife was home with a newborn.
Ms. Hill said the conviction seemed like a “setup.”
“Honestly, why now?” she asked. “Why wasn’t it done ages ago, when this all came about? Now doesn’t make sense. All of them are coming after him now because he’s running again.”
(Alvin Bragg, the district attorney who brought the case, said at a news conference after the verdict that “Our job is to follow the facts and the law without fear or favor. And that’s exactly what we did here.” Mr. Trump said Friday that he would appeal.)
Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about his opponent has grown increasingly apocalyptic. On Friday, he claimed that America under President Biden has turned into “a fascist state.” While many in this crowd said they would not vote for President Biden, they also admitted they didn’t exactly see it that way. “I don’t think he’s a bad dude or anything,” Mr. Loranger said of President Biden, “I think he was a good vice president, but he’s getting a lot older.”
Mr. Devinney simply shrugged and said, “He’s sleepin’.”
Ms. Hill said she was “100 percent — 1,000 percent” voting for Mr. Trump. She allowed that Mr. Biden “meant well,” but said, “He’s a cliché, he’s a puppet, he’s being told things. I don’t think he’s man enough to run our country.”
Manliness is the U.F.C. brand, and then some.
It is a violent spectacle, blood-spattered, brutish and brawny. A fighter from California named Kevin Holland and a fighter from Poland named Michal Oleksiejczuk beat each other to a pulp inches from Mr. Trump’s face. The former president watched with interest as the American got the Pole onto the ground, secured his right arm and appeared to yank it out of its socket. (Mr. White described it as an “absolutely beautiful” moment in his post-match commentary: “The arm clearly, at the very least, dislocated and possibly snapped,” he said.)
Victorious, Holland emerged from the octagonal ring, walked over to Mr. Trump, bent down and shook hands, leaned in to hear the former president tell him something and clapped his left hand on Mr. Trump’s right shoulder.
The moment was projected onto the colossal video screens high above the ring. And the crowd roared.
Klieg lights swiveled onto Mr. Trump and his entourage, and the sound system amped up the bass that was thumping now with The White Stripes’ revenge riff:
I’m gonna fight ‘em off.
A seven nation army couldn’t hold me back.
They’re gonna rip it off.
Takin’ their time right behind my back.
Mr. Trump stood up and spun around to face the crowd, pumping his fist.
The arena answered back: “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”
