Trump says his New York rally, full of vulgar and racist slurs, was ‘an absolute lovefest’

On October 30, 2024By Karl

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — He has been called by some allies to apologize for racist comments made by speakers at a weekend rally. Donald Trump On Tuesday, he took the opposite approach, saying it was “an honor to be involved” in such an event and describing the scene as a “lovefest” — the same term he used to describe the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump gathered supporters and reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort two days after the incident. Big rally at Madison Square Garden It featured a number of crude remarks from various speakers, including one set by. comedian Tony Hinchcliffe He joked that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.” Some of Trump’s leading Republican allies condemned the remarks, and his campaign took the rare step of publicly distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s joke, though other comments did not.

But when given the opportunity to apologize at events and in an interview, Trump bowed instead. Speaking at his resort in Florida, Trump said he had “never had a better event” than the Sunday rally in his hometown of New York.

“The love in that room. “It was breathtaking,” he said. “It was like a love fest, a total love fest. And it was an honor to be involved.

just a week ago Election DaySome of Trump’s allies have raised alarm that the rally, which was expected to highlight the Republican presidential candidate’s closing message in stately New York style, was instead serving as a distraction. even responsibilitygiven Electoral importance of Puerto Ricans Residents of Pennsylvania and other major states.

At a roundtable Tuesday afternoon outside Philadelphia, Trump received praise from retired Puerto Rican occupational therapist Maribel Valdez. “Puerto Rico stands behind you, and Puerto Rico loves you,” Valdez told him.

Trump thanked him and reminded him of his administration’s efforts to help the island in the wake of the storms. “I don’t think any president has done more for Puerto Rico than I have,” Trump said. delayed publication Billions of dollars in aid to repair years of hurricane damage in Puerto Rico until shortly before the 2020 election.

Trump was later preparing to hold a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a city with a large Hispanic population, where he would be joined by Puerto Rico’s shadow U.S. senator, Zoraida Buxo, according to a campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal meeting. announcement.

Buxo, who does not have the right to vote in the Senate because Puerto Rico is not a state, expressed his support for Trump in his post on social media site X. He said Trump is the “strong leader” Puerto Rico needs.

The fallout from the Madison Square Garden incident risked highlighting voters’ concerns about Trump’s rhetoric and propensity for debate as both campaigns scramble for votes. Speakers at the rally also made racist comments targeting Latinos, Blacks, Jews and Palestinians, as well as sexist slurs directed at Trump’s Democratic rival, the Vice President. Kamala Harrisand former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

On Tuesday, Trump tried to move past the debate and back to Harris, breaking her opponent’s record on the border and inflation, saying she “broke it on every issue after another” and adding, “I’m going to fix it and fix it.” very fast.”

Trump, who took no questions at the event, accused Harris of running an “absolute hate campaign” and claimed she “keeps talking about Hitler and the Nazi because her record is terrible.”

Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff said in recent interviews with The New York Times and The Atlantic that the former president praised Adolf Hitler while in office and suggested the Nazi leader “did some good things.”

In an interview with ABC News earlier Tuesday, Trump attempted to distance himself from Hinchcliffe but did not condemn what he said.

“I don’t know him. Someone put it there. “I don’t know who he is,” Trump said, insisting he had not heard Hinchcliffe’s comments. When asked what he thought of them, Trump “did not take the opportunity to condemn them and repeated that he had not heard the comments,” ABC reported.

The comments sparked outrage from Puerto Rican leaders.

Puerto Rico’s archbishop called on Trump to deny them, saying it wasn’t enough for the campaign to say the joke did not reflect Trump’s views. The chairman of the Puerto Rican Republican Party called Hinchcliffe’s “poor attempt at comedy” “embarrassing, ignorant, and utterly reprehensible.”

In Pennsylvania, where Trump will campaign later Tuesday, the Latino voter population has nearly tripled since 2000. More than half of them are Puerto Rican voters.

Former Republican Angelo Ortega, a longtime Allentown resident who plans to vote for Harris this time, said he couldn’t believe what he was hearing about Trump’s rally.

“I don’t know if my jaw dropped or if I was just angry or angry. I didn’t know what to feel,” said Ortega, who was born in New York but whose father is Puerto Rican. Ortega is 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 lived through it. They experienced this. They were listening (to Trump), but they thought it was like the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Ortega, a member of the advocacy group Make the Road PA.

Still, some voters of Puerto Rican descent were unimpressed. Maricelis Torres, a 24-year-old waitress who is studying to be a radiologist, waited to attend the Allentown rally and said she and her family laughed at Hinchcliffe’s joke.

“If you don’t understand humor, that’s what I’m saying, people are too soft these days,” said Torres, whose father is an islander.

Harris’ campaign released an ad to run online in battleground states targeting Puerto Rican voters and highlighting the comedian’s remarks.

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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Michael Rubinkam in Allentown, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.