Fights Erupt During ‘Jews for Trump’ Rally in Manhattan

Political tensions over the upcoming presidential election escalated on New York City’s streets on Sunday, as supporters of President Trump clashed with counterprotesters during a day of demonstrations.

Eleven people were arrested, the police said, during skirmishes between opposing sides in Manhattan, where Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer and the city’s former mayor, encountered protesters targeting a pro-Trump caravan of cars, a rally that was publicized by a group that identifies itself as Jews for Trump. All have been released except for a 36-year-old man who threw eggs in the faces of two police officers, the police said.

In one video, Mr. Giuliani could be seen in the passenger side of a vehicle with the window rolled down as anti-Trump protesters screamed at him.

In an interview, Mr. Giuliani said that he had encountered the caravan and the protesters while driving down Fifth Avenue after taping his radio show.

“I would love to have had a campaign commercial of it and put it on in the middle of America and say, ‘Who would you prefer for the next four years?” he said. “This group of foul-mouthed people who don’t seem to have a vocabulary beyond three words, or these very nice Jewish people who are driving in the car and not saying anything back and not doing anything other than exercising their right to say they’re for Donald Trump.”

According to the police, a pro-Trump caravan passed through Times Square, where supporters of the president clashed with a group of anti-Trump protesters. The cars in the convoy were then blocked by counterprotesters, and some drivers got out of their cars to confront the anti-Trump demonstrators.

The two sides hurled political slurs — calling each other “fascists” and “anarchists”— traded blows, and fought over the Trump supporters’ flags before the police broke them apart, according to videos posted online.

In some videos, a group of people can be seen yelling expletives and throwing eggs and other projectiles at passing cars flying pro-Trump flags in Midtown, while in another, a group of people holding pro-Trump banners march on one side of the street as people across the street yell, “New York hates you.”

The clashes came as the Police Department was preparing for more possible unrest as Election Day approached, including days or weeks of protests in the aftermath of the vote. Hundreds of police officers have been assigned to polling stations for both early voting and Election Day, with thousands more on standby for protests.

Top police officials have stressed the need for officers to remain neutral, despite their unions’ open embrace of Mr. Trump. But officials said an officer crossed the line late Saturday, when he used a police loudspeaker to voice support for the president while arguing with a man on the street in Flatbush, Brooklyn, who called him a “fascist.”

“Trump 2020,” the officer responded. “Put it on YouTube. Put it on Facebook. Trump 2020.”

The officer, whose name the police withheld, was suspended without pay on Sunday after videos of the incident went viral on…