OCTOBER 30, 2024:
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Donald Trump says his weekend rally that was marked by crude and racist insults was a “lovefest.” That’s a term the former president has also used to reference the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Given several opportunities to apologize on Tuesday (Oct. 29, 2024), Trump instead leaned in, saying it was an “honor to be involved” in the Madison Square Garden rally. With just a week before Election Day, some Trump allies have voiced alarm that the rally was a liability, given the electoral importance of Puerto Ricans who live in Pennsylvania and other key swing states. He was joined Tuesday night at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, by Puerto Rico’s shadow U.S. senator, who defended him.
Extended version:
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Urged by some allies to apologize for racist comments made by speakers at his weekend rally, Donald Trump took the opposite approach on Tuesday, saying it was an “honor to be involved” in such an event and calling the scene a “lovefest” — the same term he has used to describe the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump gathered supporters and reporters to his Mar-a-Lago resort two days after a massive rally at Madison Square Garden featured a number of crude remarks by various speakers, including a set by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe in which he joked that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.” Some of Trump’s top Republican allies have condemned the remarks, and his campaign took the rare step of publicly distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s joke, though not the other comments.
But given the opportunity to apologize at multiple events and in interviews Tuesday (Oct. 29, 2024), Trump instead leaned in. Speaking at his Florida resort, he said that “there’s never been an event so beautiful” as his Sunday rally in his hometown of New York.
“The love in that room. It was breathtaking,” he said. “It was like a lovefest, an absolute lovefest. And it was my honor to be involved.”
On Tuesday night, he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he knows nothing about Hinchcliffe but said, “I can’t imagine it’s a big deal.” He later agreed, though, that “probably he shouldn’t have been there.”
With just a week before Election Day, some Trump allies have voiced alarm that the rally, which was supposed to highlight the Republican presidential nominee’s closing message in grand New York fashion, has instead served as a distraction and even a liability, given the electoral importance of Puerto Ricans who live in Pennsylvania and other key swing states.
“This is not a time to have anyone criticize Puerto Rico or Latinos,” former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump for the GOP presidential nomination and later endorsed him, said in an interview with Fox News Channel.
Trump later held a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a city with a large Hispanic population, where Puerto Rico’s shadow U.S. senator, Zoraida Buxo, joined him and defended the former president’s record.
“We need this man to be our commander in chief,” said Buxo, who cannot vote in the Senate because Puerto Rico is not a state. “He will make us feel safe and he will protect us.”
Still, there was anger in Allentown. Ivet Figueroa, 61, stood outside the rally venue holding a trash can with the words “Trash Trump” on it.
She said of the insult and Trump:: “The person who said it was vetted by him. So that’s what he allowed, so he has to take responsibility for what he said. Now it’s too late for saying ‘sorry.’ I don’t want an apology, I want justice, and justice is on Nov. 5.”
The fallout from the Madison Square Garden event risked highlighting voters’ concerns about Trump’s rhetoric and penchant for controversy in the closing stretch as both campaigns are scrambling for votes. Speakers at the rally also made racist comments targeting Latinos, Black people, Jews and Palestinians, along with sexist insults directed at Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In an interview with ABC News earlier Tuesday, Trump claimed to not know Hinchcliffe but did not denounce what he said.
“I don’t know him. Someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is,” Trump said, according to the network, insisting that he hadn’t heard Hinchcliffe’s comments. When asked what he made of them, Trump “did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn’t hear the comments,” ABC reported.
In the Hannity interview, Trump said people were trying to make the comedian’s appearance into a “big deal” when it “has nothing to do with the party, has nothing to do with us.”
Asked later in the interview whether he wished the comic wasn’t there, Trump said, “Yeah, I mean I don’t know if it’s a big deal or not, but I don’t want anybody making nasty jokes or stupid jokes.” He added, “Probably he shouldn’t have been there, yeah.”
Later Tuesday, President Joe Biden, on a call organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino, denounced the comic’s joke and said, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” He later tried to clarify his comment, saying he was talking about “the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter.”
The comments from the Madison Square Garden rally have drawn outrage from Puerto Rican leaders.
The archbishop of Puerto Rico called on Trump to disavow them, saying it wasn’t enough for the campaign to say the joke didn’t reflect Trump’s views. The president of Puerto Rico’s Republican Party called the “poor attempt at comedy” by Hinchcliffe “disgraceful, ignorant and totally reprehensible.”
In Pennsylvania, where Trump campaigned Tuesday night, the Latino eligible voter population has nearly tripled since 2000. More than half of those are Puerto Rican voters.
Angelo Ortega, a longtime Allentown resident and former Republican who’s planning to vote for Harris, said he couldn’t believe what he’d heard about Trump’s rally.
“I don’t know if my jaw dropped or I was just so irritated, angry. I didn’t know what to feel,” said Ortega, who was born in New York but whose father came from Puerto Rico. Ortega has been campaigning for Harris and said he knows of at least one Hispanic GOP voter planning to switch from Trump to Harris as a result of Hinchcliffe’s comments.
“They’ve had it. They’ve had it. They were listening to (Trump), but they said they think that that was like the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Ortega, a member of the Make the Road PA advocacy group.
Still, some voters of Puerto Rican descent weren’t fazed. Maricelis Torres, 24, a waitress studying to be a radiologist, waited to get into the Allentown rally and said she and her family laughed at Hinchcliffe’s joke.
“If you don’t understand humor, then that’s what I’m saying, people are way too soft these days,” said Torres, whose father is from the island.
The Harris campaign has released an ad that will run online in battleground states targeting Puerto Rican voters and highlighting the comedian’s remarks.
At a roundtable outside Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon, Trump got some praise from a retired occupational therapist from Puerto Rico, Maribel Valdez. “Puerto Rico stands behind you, and Puerto Rico loves you,” Valdez told him.
Trump thanked her and reminisced about his administration’s efforts to help the island after storms. “I think no president has ever done more for Puerto Rico than I have,” responded Trump, who delayed the release of billions of dollars in assistance to repair years-old hurricane damage in Puerto Rico until shortly before the 2020 election.
OCTOBER 28, 2024:
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump has hosted a rally featuring crude and racist insults at New York’s Madison Square Garden, turning what his campaign had dubbed as the event where he would deliver his closing message into an illustration of what turns off his critics. At Sunday’s (Oct. 27, 2024) rally, Trump’s childhood friend David Rem referred to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, who is vying to become the first woman to be elected president, as “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” Businessman Grant Cardone told the crowd that Harris ”and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.” With just over a week before Election Day, the marquee event reflected the former president’s tone throughout his third White House campaign, in which he has torn into Harris in offensive and personal terms.
Extended version:
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump hosted a rally featuring crude and racist insults at New York’s Madison Square Garden, turning what his campaign had dubbed as the event where he would deliver his closing message into an illustration of what turns off his critics.
With just over a week before Election Day, speakers at the rally Sunday night (Oct. 27, 2024) labeled Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” called Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris “the devil,” and said the woman vying to become the first woman and Black woman president had begun her career as a prostitute.
“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Tony Hinchcliffe, a stand-up comic whose set also included lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election just nine days away.
His joke was immediately criticized by Harris’ campaign as it competes with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Puerto Rican music superstar Bad Bunny backed Harris shortly after Hinchcliffe’s appearance.
The normally pugnacious Trump campaign took the rare step of distancing itself from Hinchcliffe. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement.
But other speakers also made incendiary comments. Trump’s childhood friend David Rem referred to Harris as “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” Businessman Grant Cardone told the crowd that Harris ”and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.”
The marquee event reflected the former president’s tone throughout his third White House campaign. Though he refrained from doing so Sunday, Trump often tears into Harris in offensive and personal terms himself, questioning in recent weeks her mental stability and her intelligence as well as calling her “lazy,” long a racist trope used against Black people.
The event was a surreal spectacle that included former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, politicians including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Reps. Byron Donalds and Elise Stefanik, and an artist who painted a picture of Trump hugging the Empire State Building.
And that was all before Trump was to take the stage, running more than two hours late.
After being introduced by his wife, Melania Trump, in a rare public appearance, the former president began by asking the same questions he’s asked at the start of every recent rally: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” The crowd responded with a resounding “No!”
“This election is a choice between whether we’ll have four more years of gross incompetence and failure, or whether we’ll begin the greatest years in the history of our country,” he said.
Trump announced a new tax credit for caregivers
Trump on Sunday added a new proposal to his list of tax cuts aimed at winning over older adults and blue-collar workers, which already includes vows to end taxes on Social Security benefits, tips and overtime pay: A tax credit for family caregivers.
This comes after Harris has talked about the “sandwich generation” of adults caring for aging parents while raising their children at the same time. Harris has proposed federal funding to cover home care costs for older Americans.
Trump otherwise repeated familiar lines about foreign policy and immigration, calling for the death penalty for any migrant who kills a U.S. citizen and saying that the day he takes office, “The migrant invasion of our country ends.”
As Trump’s remarks came up on an hour, some of the crowd began trickling out.
Tech mogul Elon Musk, who spoke earlier and introduced Melania Trump, was a prominent part of Trump’s closing campaign message. The former president called Musk “a genius” and “special.”
Musk nodded to Trump’s recent plan to allow him to lead a government efficiency commission to audit the entire federal government. Several of Musk’s businesses, including Tesla and SpaceX, have major government contracts or have relied on U.S. subsidies, and Musk has faced criticism after reports that he has spoken privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Your money is being wasted and the department of government efficiency is going to fix that,” Musk said before taking a place offstage beside Melania Trump.
Many of the speakers Sunday appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention. This time, the same speakers shouted and railed more against Democrats.
Hogan, returning to the venue where he performed years ago as a professional wrestler, seemed to reprise his character, emerging wearing a giant red, orange and yellow boa and violently waving a large American flag as he posed and danced. He spat on the stage during his speech, flexed his muscles repeatedly and told the audience: “Trump is the only man that can fix this country today.”
Trump allies went after Democrats for bringing up a pro-Nazi rally
Some Democrats, calling Trump a fascist, have compared his Sunday event to a pro-Nazi rally at the Garden in February 1939. Several speakers on Sunday ripped Hillary Clinton, the Democrat defeated by Trump eight years ago, for saying recently that Trump would be “reenacting” the 1939 event. One of them, radio host Sid Rosenberg, directed a profanity at Clinton.
“Hey guys, they’re now scrambling and trying to call us Nazis and fascists,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, who draped a sparkly “MAGA” jacket over the lectern as she spoke. “And you know what they’re claiming, guys? It’s very scary. They’re claiming we’re going to go after them and try and put them in jail. Well, ain’t that rich?”
Declared Hogan in his raspy growl: “I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
Trump has denounced the four criminal indictments brought against him as politically motivated. He has ramped up his denunciations in recent weeks of “enemies from within,” naming domestic political rivals, and suggested he would use the military to go after them. Harris, in turn, has referred to Trump as a fascist.
The arena was full hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red “Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
“It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” said Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up.
A New Yorker returns home
Trump has a complicated history with the place where he built his business empire and that made him a tabloid and reality TV star. Its residents indicted him last year on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He was found guilty in that case, and also found liable in civil court for business fraud and sexual abuse.
But Trump has been talking about wanting to hold a rally at the venue dubbed “The World’s Most Famous Arena” since he launched his campaign.
The rally was one of a number of detours Trump has made from battleground states, including a recent rally in Coachella, California, and rallies on the Jersey Shore and in the South Bronx.
While some have dismissed the stops as nothing more than vanity events aimed at boosting Trump’s ego, the rallies guaranteed Trump national coverage that could help him reach the country’s few remaining undecided voters, many of whom don’t get their news from traditional outlets.
New York has not voted for a Republican for president in 40 years. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from continuing to insist he believes he can win. New York is also home to a handful of competitive congressional races that could determine which party controls the House next year.
Trump routinely uses his hometown as a foil before audiences in other states, painting a dark vision of the city that bears little resemblance to reality. He’s cast it as crime-ridden and overrun by violent, immigrant gangs who have taken over Fifth and Madison avenues and occupied Times Square.
On Sunday, however, Trump was much more complimentary of the city. He said “no city embodies the spirit” and energy of the American people more and talked about attending basketball and hockey games at the Garden.
After Trump concluded his speech after over an hour, opera singer Christopher Macchio came on stage to perform the song “New York, New York.”
The former president smiled and swayed slightly, his wife standing next to him on stage.
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