The violent and vulgar rhetoric at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally Sunday has prompted finger-pointing within the former president’s inner circle and deep concern that his message was once again eclipsed by controversy.
Several of Trump’s allies expressed dismay at the language used by speakers at the New York City event, particularly an off-color joke about Puerto Rico by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who opened the event and set the tone for an evening of disparaging and divisive remarks.
“I’m livid,” one source close to the former president said, noting that they were stunned the remarks had not been thoroughly vetted before speakers took the stage.
Throughout Sunday afternoon and evening, a parade of speakers roused the crowd at Trump’s pre-election MAGA celebration, adopting the anything-goes tone of the Republican nominee. Some lobbed racist barbs about Latino and Black Americans; others deployed misogynistic attacks against Trump’s female political adversaries, past and present.
Many of these remarks appeared to be read from teleprompters, indicating they had been approved by someone within the event’s planning team. One campaign adviser told CNN that speeches were supposed to be vetted ahead of time and was uncertain as to how the overtly racist language had made it to the stage. Another senior adviser said the speeches were vetted but insisted that the more offensive remarks were adlibbed and not on any draft given to the campaign.
By Monday, there were still disputes within the campaign over who approved Hinchcliffe’s set, which was replete with racial tropes. One adviser suggested no one had reviewed Hinchcliffe’s remarks in full. Another said the campaign was not given a draft that included some of the comedian’s more indecent jokes but did flag one calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “c*nt” as “in poor taste” and nixed it from the set.
The program diverged sharply from the meticulous staging of this summer’s Republican National Convention, where every speech was carefully scrutinized and tightly choreographed. During the convention, campaign advisers routinely edited and, in some cases, rewrote the remarks of invited speakers, with minimal room for improvisation. Campaign aides acknowledged to CNN that the level of preparation exercised at the Milwaukee convention was not applied to Sunday’s rally.
Since the RNC in July, a period marked by an extraordinary series of events — including Harris replacing President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket — Trump’s advisers have struggled to keep him focused, and his public appearances have grown increasingly erratic has he veers further off message. Some allies have at times publicly questioned whether the former president was striking an appropriate tone to win over the voters needed to carry the election in battleground states.
Sunday began with Republicans optimistic that Trump’s campaign was, at least, striking the right tone with a new advertisement that looked ahead to the prospect of a second Trump presidency.
“President Trump fights for you. His strength kept us safe. Trump cut taxes for families. Prices were lower, and the border secure. Now, President Trump can do it again, and we are going to a new golden age of American success for the citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed,” a narrator intoned.
Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist and CNN political commentator, praised the ad as a “perfect closing argument” from Trump’s campaign. But by 8 p.m., any hopes that Trump would build on that message at Madison Square Garden had evaporated.
Yet, the offending comments that evening were not altogether out of place in the context of a Trump rally, where the use of crude slogans, explicit anthems from Kid Rock, and offensive nicknames for political opponents has been the norm. Many of his supporters express themselves through crass messages on T-shirts. Trump himself has often adopted nativist language and increasingly uses profanity in his speeches.
For nearly a decade, Trump has endured — if not thrived — on the lack of a filter that defines his political brand, leaving Democrats with no clear path to exploit it in the closing stretch of the race. In a similar vein, Future Forward, the leading super PAC supporting Harris’ presidential campaign, recently cautioned that Democrats risk diluting their final message by spending time labeling Trump a fascist.
Still, the timing of Sunday’s event — so close to Election Day and with a high-profile New York backdrop — has prompted a new wave of concern from Republicans.
The controversy largely centers around Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico, which he called a “floating island of garbage.” A handful of Republicans, some closely aligned with Trump, issued statements condemning the remarks. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the state with the largest Puerto Rican population, described the comments as “neither funny nor true.” Rep. Byron Donalds, also from Florida, said, “Nobody agreed with that.”
Allies expressed worry that the remarks could have political repercussions, especially given Puerto Ricans’ growing influence in battleground states, with about half a million residing in Pennsylvania alone. Sources close to the former president confirmed that a number of calls had been made to campaign officials stressing the need to respond to the remarks.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a New York Republican and Puerto Rican who is facing one of the toughest reelection battles in the country, wrote on X, “The only thing that’s ‘garbage’ was a bad comedy set.”
“Stay on message,” D’Esposito advised.
The Trump campaign, generally unapologetic about inflammatory statements, swiftly released a statement on Sunday night distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s remarks.
“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” campaign spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said.
Trump’s distancing from Hinchcliffe did not extend to the comedian’s other inflammatory remarks — including a stereotype about Black people and watermelons, as well as a crude assertion about Latino immigrants’ sex lives. Nor did the campaign acknowledge other speakers who have drawn condemnation, such as one who referred to Harris as “the devil” and “the antichrist.”
As of Monday, there were not plans for Trump to address the comments during his upcoming appearances. The former president held an event Monday in Georgia and travels to Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Democrats quickly seized on the outwardly offensive display Sunday. In the aftermath of the rally, Puerto Rican music super star Bad Bunny signaled his support for Harris to his 45 million followers on social media, which her campaign quickly promoted.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, called Trump’s Madison Square Garden event a “hate rally” and suggested the campaign was in damage control mode over Hinchcliffe’s comments.
“They’re just realizing that they might have made a big error by saying out loud what they’re thinking,” she told MSNBC on Monday.
It remains to be seen, though, if Trump faces electoral consequences for the remarks disparaging Puerto Rico. Trump himself once called the territory “one of the most corrupt places on earth.” He accused local officials there of inflating the death toll from Hurricane Maria – estimated at 3,000 – to make him look bad.
Democrats attempted in 2020 to mobilize Puerto Ricans in some battlegrounds by attacking Trump’s handling of the response to Maria. Spanish-language ads and billboards in Florida featured Trump tossing paper towels to survivors who had lost their homes and highlighted his past criticism of the island. In Osceola County, where the population surged after Maria and one in three voters identifies as Puerto Rican, Democrats enlisted storm survivors to reach out to other Puerto Ricans against Trump.
In the end, Trump won Florida and, in Osceola County, his performance improved by 7 points.
Trump loyalists spew racist, vulgar attacks at Harris and Democrats at New York City rally
Former President Donald Trump closed his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday with an ominous 80-minute speech denouncing his political rivals, assailing immigrants and promising to invoke an 18th century law to pave the way for mass deportations.
But it was the opening acts of the New York City rally – a hodgepodge of donors, entertainers and MAGA politicians – who unleashed an eleventh-hour campaign furor that prompted angry rebukes from Democrats and some Republicans who worried the vengeful show would hurt their standing with moderate voters.
Local Trump loyalists, who made up many of the speakers’ list ahead of the former president, took the opportunity to spew familiar grievances at some of Trump’s favorite targets. One failed Republican House candidate labeled Harris “the antichrist.”
He hardly stood out.
The rally began with Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian and podcast host, assailing Puerto Rico – in the city that’s home to the largest Puerto Rican population on the US mainland. About 500,000 Puerto Ricans also live in battleground Pennsylvania, where Harris campaigned on Sunday.
“There’s a lot going on, like, I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now,” he said. “I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
The line was well-received by Trump supporters who filled the historic arena in Midtown Manhattan. Trump has recently taken to calling the US “a garbage can for the world” when he rails against undocumented immigrants.
“These Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that they do,” Hinchcliffe continued.
After the rally, Trump’s campaign sought to distance itself from Hinchcliffe, who like the other speakers was an invited guest, and his comments about Puerto Rico.
“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez said in a statement to CNN.
But Harris’ campaign had already seized on the comments about Puerto Rico, quickly clipping the video and posting it on social media channels. The vice president on Sunday visited a Puerto Rican restaurant in North Philadelphia, where she discussed her vision for the island along with plans to lower costs and create opportunity in Puerto Rican communities on the mainland.
Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, whose album “Un Verano Sin Ti” was the most-streamed album globally in 2023, posted a video of Harris spelling out her plan for Puerto Rico to his 45 million Instagram followers shortly after Hinchcliffe left the stage.
Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, whose reelection campaign depends on sizable support from the state’s Puerto Rican community, joined the backlash, writing of the “joke” on X, “It’s not funny and it’s not true. Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans!”
Another Florida Republican, Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a close ally of Trump’s, blasted the remarks. “This is not a joke. It’s completely classless & in poor taste,” he said on X. “@TonyHinchcliffe clearly isn’t funny & definitely doesn’t reflect my values or those of the Republican Party.”
New York GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, who’s facing a competitive reelection, also responded on X by saying, “I’m proud to be Puerto Rican,” adding, “The only thing that’s ‘garbage’ was a bad comedy set. Stay on message.”
Hinchcliffe, also on social media, addressed the furor, saying that his critics “have no sense of humor.”
“I love Puerto Rico and vacation there. I made fun of everyone … watch the whole set,” he wrote.
Trump — who was introduced by former first lady Melania Trump in her first speaking role at a rally this cycle — largely stuck to the script in his own remarks, including his now common assertion that his political rivals represent a traitorous “enemy within.”
“We’re running against a massive, crooked, malicious leftist machine that’s running the Democrat party,” the former president said. “They are smart and vicious, they are the enemy within, we must defeat them.”
Another warm-up act, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, reprised his old attacks on Harris and the idea, as he described it, of Americans celebrating her possible election.
“It’s gonna be pretty hard to look at (the country after Harris wins) and say, you know what, Kamala Harris, she got 85 million votes because she’s so impressive – as the first Samoan, Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president,” said Carlson, before exclaiming that anyone who is not impressed by Harris will be called a “freak” or a “criminal.”
Later, Republican politician David Rem took the microphone to call Harris “the devil” while waving around a cross.
“She is the antichrist,” Rem wailed, before saying he planned to run for mayor.
Another speaker, radio host Sid Rosenberg — who once occupied a plum seat beside Don Imus on WFAN, the area’s largest sports station — started off by attacking Clinton, the Democratic nominee from eight years ago.
“She is some sick bastard, that Hillary Clinton, huh?,” he said, channeling Trump’s own past remarks. “What a sick son of a b*tch.”
Rosenberg then turned his attention to migrants now living in New York City – and his fury over the local government’s attempts to feed and house them.
“You got homeless and veterans – Americans, Americans – sleeping on their own feces on a bench in Central Park,” Rosenberg said. “But the f**king illegals, they get whatever they want, don’t they?”
US election updates: Trump rallies in Georgia, Harris goes back to Michigan
Here’s what happened today
This live page will soon be closing. Here’s what happened today:
- Trump says he is “not a Nazi” at a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, marked by hostile rhetoric against migrants and attacks on his perceived opponents.
- Speaking in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Harris has promised to offer an alternative to Trump’s “fear and divisiveness” amid outcry over his Madison Square Garden rally.
- Police say they believe incidents in which drop boxes were set on fire, destroying hundreds of ballots in the states of Oregon and Washington, are linked.
- Biden has cast his vote early, joining more than 41 million Americans who have already voted.
- The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Elon Musk’s daily $1m giveaway to Trump supporters, describing it as an “illegal lottery”.
Bezos defends Washington Post’s non-endorsement
In an op-ed carried by the newspaper he owns, the billionaire founder of Amazon says presidential endorsements “create a perception of bias”.
“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, ‘I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.’ None,” Bezos wrote.
“What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”
Bezos’s decision to block The Washington Post from endorsing Harris in the election has faced widespread blowback from journalists and other observers. The Washington Post Guild, which represents the employees of the newspaper, said it was “deeply concerned”.
“According to our own reporters and Guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision … not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos,” the guild said this week. “This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”
Bezos says ending presidential endorsements is a ‘principled’ decision [File: Paul Ellis/Pool via
Puerto Rican archbishop asks Trump to disavow remarks provoking ‘hatred’
Roberto Octavio Gonzalez Nieves, the Catholic archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico, has called on Trump to reject the remarks of a comedian who provoked “sinister laughter” and “hatred” towards the US territory at Trump’s rally on Sunday night.
“Puerto Rico is not a floating island of garbage. Puerto Rico is a beautiful country, inhabited by a beautiful and noble people,” the archbishop said in a letter addressed to the former president and shared on social media.
“I call upon you, Mr Trump, to disavow these comments, as reflecting in any way your personal or political viewpoints,” he said.
“It is important that you, personally, apologise for these comments.”
Trump pushes to make inroads with young, first-time voters
Kamron, a high school student in the swing state of Georgia, says he can’t wait to blow out the candles for his 18th birthday this week, just in time for the election.
“A lot of young men don’t like what’s going on in the US right now,” he told the AFP news agency, adding that he believes the Democrats were spending too much time on “LGBTQ agendas” and not enough on everyday problems.
“That’s not really what the young men are looking for right now, they’re looking for a strong, powerful leader that has a backbone, they’re looking for someone to look up to,” Kamron said.
Another young Trump supporter, 18-year-old Cesar Viera, said the ex-president is “just the best for the economy right now”.
“Trump would be way better for young Americans,” he told AFP, a US flag draped across his shoulders.
Trump addresses a crowd of supporters in Atlanta, Georgia, October 28 [Cheney Orr/Reuters]
Where to next for Trump?
The former president is rallying in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday evening.
As we’ve been reporting, Pennsylvania is a critical battleground state and both Trump and Harris have made several visits there in recent weeks.
Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, will be in Michigan throughout the day on Tuesday.
Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania
Donald Trump has a serious Puerto Rico problem — in Pennsylvania.
Many Puerto Rican voters in the state are furious about racist and demeaning comments delivered at a Trump rally. Some say their dismay is giving Kamala Harris a new opening to win over the state’s Latino voters, particularly nearly half a million Pennsylvanians of Puerto Rican descent.
Evidence of the backlash was immediate on Monday: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging its members to oppose Trump on election day. Other Puerto Rican voters were lighting up WhatsApp chats with reactions to the vulgar display and raising it in morning conversations at their bodegas. Some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday in Allentown, a majority-Latino city with one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state.
And the arena Trump is speaking at is located in the middle of the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.
“It’s spreading like wildfire through the community,” said Norberto Dominguez, a precinct captain with the local Democratic party in Allentown, who noted his own family is half Republican and half Democratic voters.
“It’s not the smartest thing to do, to insult people — a large group of voters here in a swing state — and then go to their home asking for votes,” Dominguez said.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump. Almost a week before Election Day, he’s pushing to cut into Harris’ margins among Latinos, especially young men who are worried about the economy. But the comments from pro-Trump comedian Tony Hinchcliffe Sunday night, referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage,” has reverberated throughout Pennsylvania and elsewhere, prompting even the former president’s Republican allies to defend the island and denounce the comments. And with the race essentially a toss up, every vote counts — especially in Pennsylvania.
“This was just like a gift from the gods,” said Victor Martinez, an Allentown resident who owns the Spanish language radio station La Mega, noting some Puerto Rican voters in the area have been on the fence about voting at all.
“If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president.
In response to questions on the comments, and whether Trump was planning to publicly denounce them, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, “Due to President Trump’s plans to cut taxes, end inflation, and stop the surge of illegal immigrants at the southern border, he has more support from the Hispanic American community than any Republican in recent history.”
Local Democrats like Dominguez argue the fallout at the very least reminds Puerto Rican voters of Trump’s previous comments about the island, calling it “dirty” and tossing paper towels to survivors during a 2017 visit after Hurricane Maria devastated the island and killed more than 2,000 people.
And in a sign of how worried local residents are, a school district in Allentown announced Monday morning that it had canceled classes for Tuesday, when Trump visits.
The Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from the comedian’s comments about Puerto Ricans and Latinos. Danielle Alvarez, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said Sunday evening that the “joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” Another Trump adviser said the speakers’ remarks were not vetted prior to the rally. Key Republican lawmakers in Florida, New York and other states with large Puerto Rican populations quickly denounced the comments, saying it didn’t reflect GOP values.
But other Trump allies, and his running mate JD Vance, have downplayed the rhetoric as just jokes. During a rally in Wisconsin Monday, Vance said that he had not heard the joke and that “maybe it’s a stupid racist joke” or “maybe it’s not” but Harris saying people should get offended by a comedian’s jokes is “not the message of a winning campaign.”
“Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”
At a rally on Monday night in Racine, Wisconsin, Vance said that he was not worried “that a joke that a comedian who has no affiliation with Donald Trump’s campaign told,” would cost the campaign votes among minority groups in swing states. “I just don’t buy that. I don’t think that’s how most Americans think, whatever the color of their skin,” he said.
Donald Trump Jr. and other MAGA Republicans have shared social media posts with a similar message.
But at least one local Republican is denouncing the remarks.
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“The comments made by this so-called ‘comedian’ at Madison Square Garden weren’t funny, they were offensive and wrong,” state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie told POLITICO. The Republican is locked in a close race against Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, who represents Allentown and a key part of the swingy Lehigh Valley. Mackenzie said he was still looking forward to Trump’s visit.
And, some Pennsylvania GOP strategists, even as they tried to downplay the electoral fallout, acknowledged it was an unforced error at the very least.
Jimmy Zumba, a Latino GOP strategist based in the Lehigh Valley, called them “stupid comments,” that were clearly not based on the immigration and crime themes that Republicans have tried to hammer this cycle.
“Obviously I would love to be talking about that, to be on the offense on that, but right now we’re on the defense trying to defend comments that are not from the campaign or President Trump,” Zumba said, adding he didn’t believe the matter is “going to shift completely a Latino vote.”
But many local Puerto Rican community members are unwilling to let go of the comments.
Roberto L. Lugo, President of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Puerto Rican Agenda, said the nonpartisan group will be releasing a letter, shared exclusively with POLITICO, condemning the comments and urging Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans not to vote for Trump. Lugo, who was born in Puerto Rico and now lives in Philadelphia, said Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans are “really disturbed” over the comments.
“I’m not a Republican, I’m not a Democrat, I’m independent,” Lugo said. “But at this point, it’s not about political, partisan issues. It is about the respect and honor our Puerto Ricans and Latinos deserved as citizens and legal residents of this country, that’s the issue.”
“We held Trump and his campaign responsible for this disgraceful act,” he added.
State Rep. Danilo Burgos, co-chair of the “Latinos con Harris” group in Pennsylvania, said residents have spread the comments on social media and within Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican community.
“I saw two ladies in particular saying they were considering voting for Trump, but they’re not now,” he said, “because of the comments.”
He also said that Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny’s endorsement of Harris could be a game changer in Pennsylvania, arguing that a third-party candidate in Puerto Rico’s governor’s election surged from a double-digit deficit because the superstar got involved. Bad Bunny has not endorsed a candidate in that race, but has paid for billboards opposing Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon’s New Progressive Party.
“She was running away with the election,” he said. “Now that election is a statistical tie.”
Notably, Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s son, made a stop in Allentown on Monday, ahead of a planned event in Coplay, Pennsylvania, a Lehigh Valley borough outside Allentown.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Monday also noted Trump made the choice not to distance himself from the comments.
“If Donald Trump really wanted to disassociate himself with that, the first thing he would have said when he came onto the stage at Madison Square Garden was, ‘hey, listen, I heard that person’s attempt at humor. It was not funny. I stand with the Puerto Rican community,’” Shapiro told a local talk news radio station in northeast Pennsylvania. “He didn’t do that.”
Republicans have been eager to peel away Puerto Rican and Latino voters from Democrats in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Trump actually made gains among voters in North Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican-dominated neighborhoods in 2020. Harris sought to shore up her support in the neighborhood during a Sunday visit to Freddy and Tony’s, a local Puerto Rican restaurant, where she was speaking about her plans for the island around the same time that Trump’s rally featured the disparaging comments.
Kenny Perez, an employee at Freddy and Tony’s, said in an interview at the restaurant on Monday that he’s often turned off by politics and normally doesn’t vote. But he condemned the Trump rally comments and said while he’s still deciding, this year, he thinks he’ll vote for Harris and “definitely not for Trump.”
“I think he gave Kamala a boost,” Perez added.
Other Puerto Ricans want an apology from Trump himself.
“They should think before they put a person in front of millions of people to talk like that and joke like that,” said Ivonne Concepion, who also lives in North Philadelphia. “He’s gotta say ‘perdon,’ not just sorry, but from here,” she said pointing to her chest.
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