NEW YORK — Donald Trump is putting New York City on trial.

In his first campaign event since jury selection got underway in the highly anticipated political case, the former president is expected to eviscerate as crime-ridden the city where his fate will be decided.

Trump is preparing to visit a bodega following his second day in court in a criminal hush money case. The store was the site of a 2022 fatal stabbing, which the perpetrator described as self defense against an unprovoked attack in a case that inflamed conservatives.

The appearance is an effort by Trump to go on the offensive after two days besieged in court, while kneecapping Alvin Bragg, the Democratic prosecutor trying his case. Unfolding on the sidelines of the trial, it will serve as the opening of the weeks-long, courtroom-constricted phase of Trump’s campaign — a relentless critique of Democrats’ handling of crime to counter public focus on his own criminal cases.

Trump spent much of Tuesday in court, before the planned trip to the Harlem bodega where clerk Jose Alba fatally stabbed a customer who was attacking him in a case that captured the attention of Republicans nationally. Bragg initially arrested Alba but later dropped the charges.

Trump’s visit will put him on Bragg’s turf — the neighborhood that raised the top prosecutor, after two days in a courtroom where he is being tried on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

The incident underscored the complications of running for president while on trial.

The drama unfolding in the Manhattan courtroom and the trial’s demands on the former president’s schedule are not welcome by the candidate or his campaign. They sought repeatedly to delay the trial. But Trump has decided to make the most of it, using it to underscore his claims that the justice system is unfairly rigged against him and that he is the victim of political persecution.

Trump’s campaign has also worked closely with his allies to make sure they are blanketing the airwaves with talking points that tie the trial to President Joe Biden. Surrogates have been asked to call this the “Biden trials,” a phrase the former president has used himself as he railed against the proceedings on Truth Social.

On the social media site on Tuesday, Trump wrote, “MY TRIAL IS AN ASSAULT ON AMERICA!”