Donald Trump walked on a small platform decorated in red, white and blue in the center of Madison Square Garden on Sunday night after six hours of demagoguery from some of his closest allies and biggest supporters.
In front of nearly 20,000 cheering people, a friend of Trump’s called Kamala Harris “the devil” and “the antichrist” before waving around a crucifix. Tucker Carlson called her a “Samoan, Malaysian, low IQ” candidate. Rudy Giuliani said Palestinians are taught to kill at two years old and “Harris wants to bring them to you.” Popular radio host Sid Rosenberg lashed out at “f***ing illegals” and “sick son of a b****” Hillary Clinton. Businessman Grant Cardone said Harris has “pimp handlers.” Wrestler Hulk Hogan made a “hawk tuah” reference. Nearly every speaker attacked transgender people. Trump aide Stephen Miller declared America is “for Americans only.”
But it was a string of racist jokes from an insult comic that day that have forced Trump’s campaign to perform damage control within the crucial final week of voting in the presidential election, as Google searches for Tony Hinchliffe spiked alongside searches for Trump, and influential Puerto Rican personalities like Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez responded with support for Harris.
The comedian’s remarks targeting Puerto Ricans, Latinos and Black people have driven a wedge among Trump’s allies, while Harris and Democratic campaigns are pointing to that kind of language as emblematic of Trump’s crude nativism and his long history of racism, sexism and authoritarian impulses.
“And these Latinos, they love making babies, too, just know that. They do, they do. There’s no pulling out,” comedian Tony Hinchfliffe, who goes by the stage name Kill Tony, told the crowd in Manhattan on Sunday. “They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.”
Pointing to a Black person in the crowd, he said they went to a Halloween party together and “carved watermelons.”
“I don’t know if you guys know this,” he said, “but there is literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
Following the rally, a Trump campaign spokesperson said in a statement to reporters that the joke “does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
But Trump’s campaign reportedly vetted every speaker’s prepared remarks, and had even cut out Hinchcliffe’s line calling Harris a “c***,” according to The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo.
Insulting Puerto Rico — an American territory — was apparently fine. For his part, Hinchcliffe said his critics “have no sense of humor.”
Attempts to distance Trump from the remarks can’t compete with the discourse, as news spreads through WhatsApp and social media networks boosted by prominent Puerto Ricans with millions of followers, Fernando Tormos-Aponte, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, told The Independent.
“These last few days are periods where events of this nature can matter more than they would matter if they had happened 100 days ago or six months ago or maybe a couple years ago,” Tormos-Aponte said.
Trump has been remarkably resilient from electoral consequences for his scandals, but the Madison Square Garden remarks are now reminding voters of his comments about Mexican immigrants as rapists, “bad hombres” and Haitian immigrants eating pets, he said.
“The news is not just global. It’s reaching deep into communities that are currently considering whether they should go out to vote, and if so, who they should vote for,” Tormos-Aponte told The Independent. “This is the type of thing that can make someone say, ‘You know what? I was going to sit this one out, but the stakes seem too high, and I should come and really punish Trump for those comments in the ballot box.’ And you also may have others that feel so offended that they might actually switch their choice.”
Peter Navarro, a former Trump aide who effectively became the first member of the former president’s circle to go to jail in connection with January 6, told Hinchcliffe that his remarks are “tone deaf” and that he must be the “biggest, stupidest asshole that ever came down the comedy pike.”
“The joke itself isn’t even funny, and that [is] ultimately why it was double stupid,” he wrote. “Oh, and you ‘vacation’ there. Sounds like ‘some of my best friends are’ crap. How about admitting it was in poor taste in the stretch run of the most important presidential election in history?”
Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida wrote that the “joke bombed for a reason.”
“It’s not funny and it’s not true,” he said. “Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans! I’ve been to the island many times. It’s a beautiful place. Everyone should visit! I will always do whatever I can to help any Puerto Rican in Florida or on the island.”
GOP congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida said she was “disgusted” by Hinchcliffe’s “racist” comments.
Right-wing radio host John Fredericks said putting Rosenberg and Hinchliffe on the stage was “asinine,” and that they “should have been better vetted.”
“Here we are talking about two obscure people that have nothing to do with this election,” he said on his program on Monday.
“Apparently the October surprise was a presidential campaign committing mass political suicide on stage at MSG,” GOP strategist and former Trump administration staffer Matthew Bartlett told Politico.
Trump’s running mate JD Vance told reporters on Monday that “maybe it’s a stupid racist joke” or “maybe it’s not,” but “we’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing.”
On the island itself, the Catholic archbishop and the head of the Puerto Rico Republican Party demanded that Trump apologize.
“It is not sufficient for your campaign to apologize,” Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez wrote in a letter to Trump. “It is important that you, personally, apologize for these comments.”
“If Donald Trump doesn’t apologize,” Puerto Rico GOP president Ángel Cintrón said, “we won’t vote for him.”
Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper El Nueva Dia endorsed Harris on Tuesday, with her image on the front cover below a photograph of Hinchcliffe.
The comments have also added more fuel for Democratic campaigns.
The Democratic National Committee paid for Spanish-language billboards across Pennsylvania with Trump’s face next to a reference of Hinchcliffe’s comments. The must-win swing state has one of the biggest Puerto Rican populations in the US.
“Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican Party is driven by hate and extremism — and that’s exactly what the Trump campaign chose to relay to voters as his closing message in this campaign,” DNC co-executive director Monica Guardiola said in a statement announcing the ads.
Rallying Harris supporters in the state on Monday, former President Barack Obama said “these are fellow citizens he’s talking about.”
“Here in Philadelphia, they are your neighbors,” he added. “They are your friends, they are your coworkers. Their kids go to school with your kids. These are Americans, they’re people.”
The board of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York said Hinchcliffe’s insult “will not diminish who we are or what we represent but should remind us of the critical importance of voting” on November 5.
“Can’t get over this dude telling someone else to change tampons when he’s the one s******* bricks in his Depends after realizing opening for a Trump rally and feeding red-meat racism alongside a throng of other bigots to a frothing crowd does, unironically, make you one of them,” said New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“You don’t ‘love Puerto Rico.’ You like drinking piña coladas,” she wrote. “There’s a difference.”