The 'All-Seeing Trump' Zoltar Machine Is a Big Hit in New York City

WEST VILLAGE, NY — The "All-Knowing Trump," a parody of the Zoltar fortune-telling machine from the movie "Big," made its way into Washington Square Park on Friday afternoon to dozens of people laughing, pointing, humping the machine ("the Trumpty-hump," as one onlooker called it), and, of course, taking selfies with it.

The tone was blatant: These New Yorkers hate Trump.

• Scroll to the bottom of the story to see the "live" Trump Zoltar machine.

"I mean, I think it's been clear that Manhattan hates Trump," one of the maintenance men accompanying the machine to the park told Patch. "We thought there'd probably be some pushback, and there really hasn't been."

The maintenance worker and his colleague, two men in their 20s, were both instructed to remain anonymous by their anonymous employer, they told Patch. They said they and their employer, who ordered the machine from manufacturer Characters Unlimited Inc., wanted to remain anonymous because they wanted people to focus on Trump as the story, not the person behind the machine.

The machine spits out satirical, off-color Trumpisms done by a Trump impersonator. ("I'm getting a vision now. ... We set a lot of fires, mostly in black neighborhoods, and we burn it all down. They can roast marshmallows, it'll be fun," the machine says.) The machine Trump comments on everything from Mexico to ISIS to women's bodies.

Each fortune spits out a card with a personal fortune:

Omar Haqim, a 33-year-old who's lived in the East Village for eight years, told Patch he was strolling by the fountain when he heard the "All-Seeing Trump" machine saying something disparaging about Muslim Americans. That made him stop and take a look.

"As someone who's Muslim, me and my friends we just like laugh it off," Haqim told Patch. "It's easy to do that as a coping mechanism, but it's still like laughing with tears. The emoji of like tears coming out is how I feel about all of it. It's so ridiculous, but also super, super sad. And you know, it's given people license to do really hateful, violent things."

Haqim is culturally Muslim and doesn't actively practice religion, but he said Trump doesn't care whether you're religious or not when it comes to discrimination.

"When Trump says things, it's also just like a visual indicator, for not just Muslims, but also Sikhs and Hindus, and people who are just sort of under this stereotype of what a Muslim looks like as a brown person," Haqim said. "Even if you're not a practicing person, if you just fit that description, you're open to some sort of harassment."

Giovany Archie, a 20-year-old resident of East Flatbush, Brooklyn, told Patch the machine said what New Yorkers are all thinking.

"I feel like everybody in my neighborhood and everybody I've ever seen talk about him in Brooklyn, they don't like him," Archie said. "No one really cares for Trump because Trump doesn't care for us. I mean, Trump straight up bad mouths everyone who's not a rich, white person. Why should we support him?"

The "All-Seeing Trump" machine has been to a mosque, Planned Parenthood, a Mexican restaurant and outside Trump Towers in the past week, one of the carriers told Patch. The Trump in the machine boasts a custom-made wig by a local wigmaker and a custom orange spray tan, he said. He has around 30 "fortunes," and the carriers will load a playlist of some of them based on the location of the machine.

"The wall, or deporting illegal Mexicans would be the fortunes you'd hear in front of a Mexican restaurant," one of the carriers told Patch. "Right now you're just hearing his greatest hits."

Photo credit: Sarah Kaufman/Patch