Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free
The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House
Donald Trump and his allies were scrambling on Monday to stem the fallout from a campaign rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden where one speaker called Puerto Rico a “floating pile of garbage” and another likened Kamala Harris to a prostitute with “pimp handlers”.
With just over a week to go until the US presidential election, the Trump campaign had billed Sunday’s rally at the iconic Manhattan venue as the Republican former president’s “closing argument” before an audience of thousands of adoring supporters.
But a series of racist, misogynistic and vulgar comments by warm-up acts overshadowed Trump’s stump speech and prompted his campaign and Republican allies to rush to distance themselves from the speakers in an attempt to protect the presidential candidate from any negative fallout.
Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian who opened the rally, called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and made a number of other crude jokes about Hispanics, Jews, Palestinians and African-Americans in his speech.
The former president has yet to comment on the remarks. But Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said Hinchliffe’s joke about Puerto Ricans “does not reflect the views of President Trump or his campaign”.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the campaign, dismissed Hinchcliffe as a “comedian who made a joke in poor taste”.
“I think it is sad that the media will pick up on one joke that was made by a comedian rather than the truths that were shared by the phenomenal list of speakers that we had,” she told Fox News on Monday.
Rick Scott, the Republican senator from Florida, who is locked in a tough re-election race of his own, said Hinchcliffe’s joke “bombed for a reason”.
“It’s not funny and it’s not true. Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans!” Scott wrote in a post on X. “I will always do whatever I can to help any Puerto Rican in Florida or on the island.”
The Republicans’ efforts to distance themselves from the comments did little to quell outrage from Democrats, however, who charged that they were a reflection of Trump and those he chooses to surround himself with.
“When casting their ballots at the voting booth, Latinos should never forget the racism that Donald Trump seems all too willing to platform,” said Democratic New York congressman Ritchie Torres, who represents part of the South Bronx and is of Puerto Rican origin.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic congresswoman from New York who is also of Puerto Rican heritage, said the Trump campaign “invited this rhetoric on their stage for a reason”.
“It was a chorus of speakers on that campaign for a reason. It was vetted, and they knew exactly who was going to say what before they went on,” she added.
Puerto Rico is an unincorporated US territory, and the Pew Research Center, a non-partisan think-tank, estimates nearly 6mn Hispanics of Puerto Rican origin live in the US — many in the seven swing states that are likely to determine who wins the White House on November 5.
The Financial Times’ poll tracker shows Trump and Harris in a virtual tie in all of the battlegrounds.
Hinchcliffe was not the only speaker on Sunday to spark outrage. David Rem, who the Trump campaign described as a “childhood friend” of the former president called Harris “the devil” and “the anti-Christ” as he waved a crucifix on stage.
Meanwhile, Grant Cardone, an investor, likened Harris, who if elected would be the first female president of the US, to a prostitute, saying the vice-president and her “pimp handlers” would “destroy our country”.
Read the full article here
