Speakers at six-hour Trump rally in New York insult Puerto Ricans, mock Harris’ race • Iowa Capital Dispatch

NEW YORK – Former President Donald Trump promised “America’s new golden age” of closed borders and world peace as he rallied a crowd at Madison Square Garden in his hometown in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential race against the vice president. Kamala Harris.

Trump led the more than six-hour rally that featured nearly 30 speakers, some of whom insulted Latinos and attacked Democratic candidate Harris because of her race, and promised to “make America great again, and that will happen fast.” ”.

“It’s called America First, and it’s going to happen like no one has seen before,” Trump said, adding: “We will not be invaded, we will not be conquered.” We will once again be a free and proud nation. “Everyone will prosper.”

But the event also drew intense criticism from Democrats over comments from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who spoke during the afternoon hours in front of Trump and called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.”

The joke could prove politically problematic for Republicans, who have been courting the latin voteand particularly in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans live.

The United States is home to 5.6 million Puerto Ricans, according to a Pew Research Center analysis from census data, and about 8% of them live in Pennsylvania.

Hinchcliffe, who hosts a podcast called “Kill Tony,” also said that Latinos “love having babies” and made a lewd joke about them.

Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott, whose state is also home to hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans, wrote on X: “It’s not funny and it’s not true. “Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans!”

democrats brought U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is Puerto Rican, and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz to ruin the joke. “When there is some moron who calls Puerto Rico floating trash… that’s what they think of anyone who makes less money than them,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Harris, on Sunday in Philadelphia, presented a new political proposal. focused about Puerto Rico.

The former president’s 80-minute speech mainly included his usual campaign promises and stories, although he added one proposal to his list of tax breaks: a benefit for those caring for sick or elderly relatives in their homes. Harris too inserted in early October a policy for home care of seniors.

Trump repeated his popular promises to “get the transgender madness out of our schools,” “stop the invasion” at the border, and restore peace to Ukraine and the Middle East, which he said would never have been devastated by war if he had been in office. office.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, told the crowd that his time spent campaigning for Trump across the country has revealed that “something very powerful is happening among the base.” .

“I tell you there’s an energy out there that we haven’t seen before,” Johnson said.

New York stops a detour

Trump held the rally nine days before polls closed on Nov. 5. Nearly 42 million Americans have already voted early, in person or by mail, in more than two dozen states, according to the University of Florida Election Laboratory. early voting tracker.

Trump’s stop in New York deviated from the seven key states in this election: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. His campaign also announced Sunday two upcoming stops in New Mexico and Virginia during the final week of the contest.

Still, both candidates attacked Pennsylvania again over the weekend, and Trump followed through comments Saturday at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, and Harris spent Sunday gathering a crowd in Philadelphia.

Harris spoke to reporters in Philadelphia, a city she described as “a very important part of our path to victory.”

“I feel very optimistic about the enthusiasm here and the commitment that people of all backgrounds have to vote and really invest in the future of our country,” Harris told reporters.

The vice president criticized Trump for using “dark and divisive language,” including his comments this week that the United States is the “trash can of the world.”

“I think people are ready to move on,” he said.

Tucker Carlson chases Harris

Numerous speakers attacked Harris’ record, a standard feature of political rallies, but some comments invoked her race. Trump’s childhood best friend, David Rem, grabbed a crucifix and told the crowd that Harris is the “antichrist.”

Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson described Harris as a “low-IQ, Malaysian, Samoan, former California prosecutor” as he crafted a scenario in which Democrats mulled their candidate after the election.

“Donald Trump has made it possible for the rest of us to tell the truth about the world around us,” Carlson said at the beginning of his speech.

Harris’ mother was Indian and his father is Jamaican. Trump has previously questioned his race during his interview with the National Association of Black Journalists.

Carlson, who was fired from Fox News in April 2023, accused Democrats of telling “lies” and said in a mocking voice: “Jan. 6 It was an insurrection, they were unarmed, but it was very much an insurrection.”

The violent attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 by thousands of Trump supporters came after months of the former president refusing to concede the 2020 presidential election, which President Joe Biden won.

Twenty-eight speakers preceded Trump, beginning shortly after 2:00 p.m. and attending until the former president took the stage at 7:13 p.m. Trump’s wife, Melania, in a rare appearance at a campaign rally, introduced him and He spoke briefly.

The lineup included the founder of Death Row Records, television personality Dr. Phil and professional wrestling’s Hulk Hogan and Dana White, some of whom spoke at July’s four-day Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Billionaire businessman Elon Musk, whose super PAC has invested more than $75 million in the campaign, was among the lineup of speakers.

Musk told the crowd to vote early and that he wanted to see a “massive landslide.”

“Make the margin of victory so large that you know what can’t happen,” he said, referring to debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Focus on New York

The day was filled with the mystique of New York and Trump’s ties to it. New York City is not only where Trump grew up and followed his father’s path into real estate, but now also where he has been. convicted in May in a Manhattan court on 34 state felony charges for a hush money scheme involving a porn star.

A vendor selling campaign materials to supporters waiting to enter Madison Square Garden on Sunday morning advertised a hat that said “I’m voting for convicted felon.”

Several speakers credited Trump with changing New York City’s skyline. The 58-story Trump Tower is located on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan, among his other real estate properties on the island.

“New York City made Donald Trump, but Donald Trump also made New York City,” said Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

Howard Lutnick, president and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and co-chairman of the Trump campaign’s “transition team,” told the story of the loss of just over 650 of his employees in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, planned by the known terrorist Osama. bin Laden.

“We must elect Donald J. Trump president because we must crush jihad,” Lutnick said.

Lutnick joked with Musk on stage, estimating that the two could possibly cut $2 trillion in federal spending under a second Trump administration. Trump has tapped the duo to head a commission on government efficiency if elected.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who took a leading role in spreading Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election, received a standing ovation from the entire stadium.

He accused Biden and Harris of spreading “socialism, fascism and communism.”

Giuliani, a major player in Trump’s false claim that he won the 2020 election, appeared at the rally just days after a federal judge in New York ordered him to hand over his apartment and valuables to election workers in Georgia, who was found guilty of defamation.

Giuliani, along with a handful of other speakers, also implied that Democrats are responsible for both of Trump’s assassination attempts.

“I’m not going to plot,” Giuliani said, “but it’s funny that they tried to do everything else and now they’re trying to kill him.”

Impeachment was a theme throughout the day-long event. Speaker after speaker insinuated or openly blamed Democrats for the two attempts on Trump’s life, without ever mentioning the perpetrators. The gunman on the first attempt was delicate by law enforcement, and the second, who never shot Trump, has been loaded in Florida; None of them have been found to have ties to Democrats.

Trump focused some of his comments on New York City, referencing his childhood and adding that he had sympathy for the city’s accused mayor, Eric Adams.

The rally ended, not with Trump’s signature closing “YMCA” by the Village People, but with a live performance of Christopher Macchio’s “New York, New York.”