Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has called his rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City a “lovefest”, despite criticism over racist and sexist comments made by speakers at the event. The rally, which was attended by thousands of people, was marked by crude and racist insults targeting various communities, including Latinos, black people, Jews, and Palestinians. The event also included sexist insults directed at Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton.
Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump praised the event, saying “there’s never been an event so beautiful” as the rally in his hometown of New York City. He described the atmosphere as “breathtaking” and said it was “a lovefest, an absolute lovefest”. Trump also praised the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who made a joke about Puerto Rico being a “floating island of garbage”, despite widespread condemnation of the comment.
The Trump campaign took the rare step of distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico, but not other comments made during the rally. The president of Puerto Rico’s Republican Party, Angel Cintron, called the joke “disgraceful, ignorant and totally reprehensible” and said it did not represent the conservative values of the Republican Party.
Donald Trump (Image via Getty)
Trump used the rally at Mar-a-Lago to criticize Kamala Harris’s record on the border and the economy, saying she had “broken” issues and that he would fix them quickly. Some Trump allies have expressed alarm that the event has served as a distraction, highlighting voters’ concerns about his rhetoric and penchant for controversy in the race’s closing stretch.
Speaking before the event to ABC News, Trump said he did not know the comic who delivered the most egregious insults, but did not denounce them either. He described the comments as “someone’s attempt at comedy” that he had not heard. Trump is set to campaign later in Pennsylvania, a state where the Latino eligible voter population has more than doubled since 2000, and where more than half of those are Puerto Rican eligible voters.
Some Hispanic voters in Pennsylvania, including Angelo Ortega, a longtime resident and former Republican, have been outraged by the rally and are planning to vote for Harris due to the comments made at the event. Ortega, who was born in New York but whose father came from Puerto Rico, described the comments as “like the straw that broke the camel’s back” and said that he knows of at least one Hispanic Republican voter who is switching from Trump to Harris as a result of the comments.
