Important that Trump personally apologize for comedian’s comments
Sarah Fortinsky
Tue, October 29, 2024
Roberto González Nieves, archbishop of San Juan de Puerto Rico, called on former President Trump to apologize personally for comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke comparing Puerto Rico to “a floating island of garbage.”
In an “open letter” addressed to the former president, the archbishop said he “consulted with my brother bishops of Puerto Rico” and was “dismayed and appalled” by Hinchcliffe’s joke, which the controversial comedian delivered Sunday at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally ahead of the GOP presidential nominee’s speech.
“I call upon you, Mr. Trump, to disavow these comments as reflecting in any way your personal or political viewpoints,” the letter reads. “It is not sufficient for your campaign to apologize. It is important that you, personally, apologize for these comments.”
Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, has faced significant backlash from figures across the political aisle since delivering the joke. His set also included jokes targeting Jews and Black men, but it was his comments about Puerto Rico that generated the most attention and criticism.
“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. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe said on stage Sunday, eliciting mixed reactions from the crowd. The comedian has also defended his remarks amid scrutiny.
The archbishop sharply pushed back on Hinchcliffe’s remarks in his open letter.
“Puerto Rico is not a floating island of garbage. Puerto Rico is a beautiful country inhabited by a beautiful and noble people, which is why in Spanish it is called ‘un encanto, un edén’,” he wrote. “More Puerto Rican soldiers died in the Vietnam War as part of the United States military than soldiers from any state of the United States.”
“I enjoy a good joke,” González Nieves continued. “However, humor has its limits. It should not insult or denigrate the dignity and sacredness of people. Hinchcliffe’s remarks do not only provoke sinister laughter but hatred.”
He added, “These kinds of remarks should not be a part of the political discourse of a civilized society.”
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for a response.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Comedian who made anti-Asian remarks spews more racist 'jokes' at Trump rally
Carl Samson
Eboni Boykin-Patterson
Mon, October 28, 2024
Tony Hinchcliffe
Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe set the internet ablaze and invited condemnation even from the campaign he was supporting on Sunday when he made several racist “jokes” that may have alienated potential Donald Trump voters at the former president’s New York rally on Sunday. But the controversial host of the “Kill Tony” podcast has long been known for that type of “comedy.”
Hinchcliffe took the stage at Madison Square Garden and attacked several groups of people during his remarks, like when he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” and said Latinos “love making babies.”
“There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that,” he added. “They come inside. Just like they did to our country.” He also used a racial trope when he aligned a Black man in the crowd with watermelon, among other incendiary comments.
On Monday the Trump camp said in a statement, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” But considering Hinchcliffe had already garnered a reputation for making racist remarks in his comedy, the statement doesn’t hold water.
In 2021, Hinchcliffe was dropped from his agency and had several upcoming performances canceled after he called comic Peng Dang a racial slur on stage and mimicked an Asian accent while making comments about soy sauce. He doubled down once he gained new representation and appeared on the YouTube show “TRIGGERnometry,” where he insinuated Dang was a “Chinese spy” and called fallout from his using a slur “an orchestrated attack by the Chinese media.”
Three years later, Hinchcliffe has never expressed any regret for his comments, and in April told Variety of the incident, “I knew that what I had done was not wrong,” and “comedians should never apologize for a joke.” He also agreed (without naming Dang) that “being offended is one hundred percent a way to advance in the business.”
Hinchcliffe is also known for making “jokes” about the public murder of George Floyd. He told Variety, “I have a George Floyd joke that I do.” Not getting said joke shows, according to Hinchcliffe, that one is not a “high-level stand-up fan,” or “doesn’t know comedy.” All that taken into account, it’s hard to believe Trump’s campaign wouldn’t have known what they were getting when Hinchcliffe was invited as a speaker.
The comedian last drew outrage earlier this year, when he used a homophobic slur and crassly joked about Kim Kardashian at Tom Brady’s roast on Netflix. “A whale’s vagina, which reminds me, Kim Kardashian’s here. She’s had a lot of Black men celebrating her end zone,” he said, adding, “Kim, word of advice, close your legs. You have more public beef than Kendrick and Drake.”
Elsewhere in the Variety interview, the comic pushed right-wing talking points, including the idea that being offended by a racial comment is “virtue signaling,” as is masking against COVID, which may have been all Trump’s team cared about before they recruited him to speak at MSG.
Trump, meanwhile, has made disparaging comments about immigrants and potential Black and Latino voters for years that Republicans have repeatedly downplayed. Now, Trump’s campaign staff is saying Hinchcliffe’s “joke” about Puerto Rico being garbage Sunday night was “in poor taste,” as both Republicans and Democrats alike (not named Marjorie Taylor Greene) agree the jokes went too far.
With only a few days to go before a neck-and-neck election, alienating a significant portion of the population—including nearly one million Puerto Ricans in swing states—may not seem like the smartest move. But it’s one the Trump campaign should have seen coming.
Opinion: As a Puerto Rican professor, I worked to help my class process a racist joke
Benigno Trigo
Tue, October 29, 2024
Over the weekend, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made disparaging remarks about Puerto Rico during a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
He made a joke, and Puerto Rico was the butt of the joke.
He said: "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 ... I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
I’m a professor of Spanish, and on Monday, one of my students brought up the subject in my medicine and literature class.
Jokes, like dreams, are obscuring. So said Freud
I was born in Puerto Rico so when the subject came up during the class, I felt that I had the responsibility to address it.
I’ve always felt that part of my job as a teacher is to challenge stereotypical views about the island of my birth and its people.
I told my students that jokes were like dreams.
They are mechanisms that allow us to turn what we don’t want to face directly into something unfamiliar, but also into something that allows us to experience an emotion, a feeling, a wish, that we cannot experience directly.
Opinion: ‘Kill Tony’s’ Puerto Rico joke was the real garbage
I told them that the thing about jokes is that they don’t allow you to think about their mechanism.
How is it that they “land” (or not, as the case may be)? Jokes, like dreams, are about obscuring the way they work, so that we don’t have to face what drives them.
I was quoting Sigmund Freud.
Does writing about Hinchcliffe's joke continue to recirculate it?
I challenged my students to think about the form rather than the content of Hinchcliffe’s clearly racist joke, in order to think past the butt of the joke, and to consider what might be behind it.
They came up with some interesting possibilities. One of them said that the joke really was about the loss of control of migration. Another one said that the joke was about the fear of the power the island of Puerto Rico.
It was a paradoxical exercise for me. On the one hand, I managed to redirect the racist energy of the joke, calling attention to the joker rather than the butt.
My students successfully inverted the dynamic of the joke. Like good analysts, they revealed the unspoken fears and anxieties of the comedian. Bringing him down a notch.
On the other, hard as I tried not to take the joke personally, and to turn it into a symptom of a racist pathology, it also made me feel bad to repeat it, and to see myself through the eyes of the comedian, as the butt of his ill-conceived joke.
After further reflection, perhaps by writing this essay, I’m doing more than recycling the comedian’s pathological garbage.
Benigno Trigo
Benigno Trigo is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities, Spanish and Portuguese College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University.
Sarah Fortinsky
Tue, October 29, 2024
Roberto González Nieves, archbishop of San Juan de Puerto Rico, called on former President Trump to apologize personally for comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke comparing Puerto Rico to “a floating island of garbage.”
In an “open letter” addressed to the former president, the archbishop said he “consulted with my brother bishops of Puerto Rico” and was “dismayed and appalled” by Hinchcliffe’s joke, which the controversial comedian delivered Sunday at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally ahead of the GOP presidential nominee’s speech.
“I call upon you, Mr. Trump, to disavow these comments as reflecting in any way your personal or political viewpoints,” the letter reads. “It is not sufficient for your campaign to apologize. It is important that you, personally, apologize for these comments.”
Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, has faced significant backlash from figures across the political aisle since delivering the joke. His set also included jokes targeting Jews and Black men, but it was his comments about Puerto Rico that generated the most attention and criticism.
“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. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe said on stage Sunday, eliciting mixed reactions from the crowd. The comedian has also defended his remarks amid scrutiny.
The archbishop sharply pushed back on Hinchcliffe’s remarks in his open letter.
“Puerto Rico is not a floating island of garbage. Puerto Rico is a beautiful country inhabited by a beautiful and noble people, which is why in Spanish it is called ‘un encanto, un edén’,” he wrote. “More Puerto Rican soldiers died in the Vietnam War as part of the United States military than soldiers from any state of the United States.”
“I enjoy a good joke,” González Nieves continued. “However, humor has its limits. It should not insult or denigrate the dignity and sacredness of people. Hinchcliffe’s remarks do not only provoke sinister laughter but hatred.”
He added, “These kinds of remarks should not be a part of the political discourse of a civilized society.”
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for a response.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Comedian who made anti-Asian remarks spews more racist 'jokes' at Trump rally
Carl Samson
NEXT SHARK
Tue, October 29, 2024 a
[Source]
Stand-up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe sparked outrage on Sunday after launching a series of racist jokes at a Donald Trump rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. His remarks, denounced by members of both political parties, bring back to memory his history of making anti-Asian comments.
What happened: Hinchcliffe delivered a set filled with racist slurs targeting various minority groups at the rally, which was meant to serve as a key event before Election Day. His most inflammatory comments included derogatory references to Latinos, describing them as having an uncontrolled population growth. “[They] love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country,” he quipped. Hinchcliffe also disparaged Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” The rally’s tone darkened further as Hinchcliffe’s jokes extended to antisemitic and Black stereotypes. His performance was met with groans and sporadic laughter from the crowd but sparked fierce criticism outside the venue. In an X post, U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) said Hinchcliffe’s racist rhetoric “does not reflect GOP values,” while Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-New York) noted that “the only thing that’s ‘garbage’ was a bad comedy set.” Meanwhile, Democrats capitalized on the uproar, with figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying, “When you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico ‘floating garbage,’ know that that’s what they think about you.”
The big picture: Sunday’s controversy follows a familiar pattern for Hinchcliffe, who faced backlash in 2021 after openly mocking Chinese American comedian Peng Dang with a racial slur and a fake Asian accent. His comments, which ridiculed Asian stereotypes, occurred amid rising anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. and were widely condemned on social media. Dang at the time told NextShark that he was shocked and upset, recalling the moment he introduced Hinchcliffe to the stage in Austin, Texas, only to be called a “filthy little f*cking ch*nk.”
Last week in Austin, I got to bring up Tony Hinchcliffe. This is what he said. Happy Asian (AAPI) Heritage Month! pic.twitter.com/9XG6upit2a
— Peng Dang (@pengdangcomedy) May 11, 2021
Trump Campaign Knew Exactly What It Was Getting With Tony Hinchcliffe’s Racist Jokes
Tue, October 29, 2024 a
[Source]
Stand-up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe sparked outrage on Sunday after launching a series of racist jokes at a Donald Trump rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. His remarks, denounced by members of both political parties, bring back to memory his history of making anti-Asian comments.
What happened: Hinchcliffe delivered a set filled with racist slurs targeting various minority groups at the rally, which was meant to serve as a key event before Election Day. His most inflammatory comments included derogatory references to Latinos, describing them as having an uncontrolled population growth. “[They] love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country,” he quipped. Hinchcliffe also disparaged Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” The rally’s tone darkened further as Hinchcliffe’s jokes extended to antisemitic and Black stereotypes. His performance was met with groans and sporadic laughter from the crowd but sparked fierce criticism outside the venue. In an X post, U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) said Hinchcliffe’s racist rhetoric “does not reflect GOP values,” while Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-New York) noted that “the only thing that’s ‘garbage’ was a bad comedy set.” Meanwhile, Democrats capitalized on the uproar, with figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying, “When you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico ‘floating garbage,’ know that that’s what they think about you.”
The big picture: Sunday’s controversy follows a familiar pattern for Hinchcliffe, who faced backlash in 2021 after openly mocking Chinese American comedian Peng Dang with a racial slur and a fake Asian accent. His comments, which ridiculed Asian stereotypes, occurred amid rising anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. and were widely condemned on social media. Dang at the time told NextShark that he was shocked and upset, recalling the moment he introduced Hinchcliffe to the stage in Austin, Texas, only to be called a “filthy little f*cking ch*nk.”
Last week in Austin, I got to bring up Tony Hinchcliffe. This is what he said. Happy Asian (AAPI) Heritage Month! pic.twitter.com/9XG6upit2a
— Peng Dang (@pengdangcomedy) May 11, 2021
Trump Campaign Knew Exactly What It Was Getting With Tony Hinchcliffe’s Racist Jokes
Eboni Boykin-Patterson
Mon, October 28, 2024
Tony Hinchcliffe
Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe set the internet ablaze and invited condemnation even from the campaign he was supporting on Sunday when he made several racist “jokes” that may have alienated potential Donald Trump voters at the former president’s New York rally on Sunday. But the controversial host of the “Kill Tony” podcast has long been known for that type of “comedy.”
Hinchcliffe took the stage at Madison Square Garden and attacked several groups of people during his remarks, like when he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” and said Latinos “love making babies.”
“There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that,” he added. “They come inside. Just like they did to our country.” He also used a racial trope when he aligned a Black man in the crowd with watermelon, among other incendiary comments.
On Monday the Trump camp said in a statement, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” But considering Hinchcliffe had already garnered a reputation for making racist remarks in his comedy, the statement doesn’t hold water.
In 2021, Hinchcliffe was dropped from his agency and had several upcoming performances canceled after he called comic Peng Dang a racial slur on stage and mimicked an Asian accent while making comments about soy sauce. He doubled down once he gained new representation and appeared on the YouTube show “TRIGGERnometry,” where he insinuated Dang was a “Chinese spy” and called fallout from his using a slur “an orchestrated attack by the Chinese media.”
Three years later, Hinchcliffe has never expressed any regret for his comments, and in April told Variety of the incident, “I knew that what I had done was not wrong,” and “comedians should never apologize for a joke.” He also agreed (without naming Dang) that “being offended is one hundred percent a way to advance in the business.”
Hinchcliffe is also known for making “jokes” about the public murder of George Floyd. He told Variety, “I have a George Floyd joke that I do.” Not getting said joke shows, according to Hinchcliffe, that one is not a “high-level stand-up fan,” or “doesn’t know comedy.” All that taken into account, it’s hard to believe Trump’s campaign wouldn’t have known what they were getting when Hinchcliffe was invited as a speaker.
The comedian last drew outrage earlier this year, when he used a homophobic slur and crassly joked about Kim Kardashian at Tom Brady’s roast on Netflix. “A whale’s vagina, which reminds me, Kim Kardashian’s here. She’s had a lot of Black men celebrating her end zone,” he said, adding, “Kim, word of advice, close your legs. You have more public beef than Kendrick and Drake.”
Elsewhere in the Variety interview, the comic pushed right-wing talking points, including the idea that being offended by a racial comment is “virtue signaling,” as is masking against COVID, which may have been all Trump’s team cared about before they recruited him to speak at MSG.
Trump, meanwhile, has made disparaging comments about immigrants and potential Black and Latino voters for years that Republicans have repeatedly downplayed. Now, Trump’s campaign staff is saying Hinchcliffe’s “joke” about Puerto Rico being garbage Sunday night was “in poor taste,” as both Republicans and Democrats alike (not named Marjorie Taylor Greene) agree the jokes went too far.
With only a few days to go before a neck-and-neck election, alienating a significant portion of the population—including nearly one million Puerto Ricans in swing states—may not seem like the smartest move. But it’s one the Trump campaign should have seen coming.
Opinion: As a Puerto Rican professor, I worked to help my class process a racist joke
Benigno Trigo
Tue, October 29, 2024
Over the weekend, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made disparaging remarks about Puerto Rico during a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
He made a joke, and Puerto Rico was the butt of the joke.
He said: "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 ... I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
I’m a professor of Spanish, and on Monday, one of my students brought up the subject in my medicine and literature class.
Jokes, like dreams, are obscuring. So said Freud
I was born in Puerto Rico so when the subject came up during the class, I felt that I had the responsibility to address it.
I’ve always felt that part of my job as a teacher is to challenge stereotypical views about the island of my birth and its people.
I told my students that jokes were like dreams.
They are mechanisms that allow us to turn what we don’t want to face directly into something unfamiliar, but also into something that allows us to experience an emotion, a feeling, a wish, that we cannot experience directly.
Opinion: ‘Kill Tony’s’ Puerto Rico joke was the real garbage
I told them that the thing about jokes is that they don’t allow you to think about their mechanism.
How is it that they “land” (or not, as the case may be)? Jokes, like dreams, are about obscuring the way they work, so that we don’t have to face what drives them.
I was quoting Sigmund Freud.
Does writing about Hinchcliffe's joke continue to recirculate it?
I challenged my students to think about the form rather than the content of Hinchcliffe’s clearly racist joke, in order to think past the butt of the joke, and to consider what might be behind it.
They came up with some interesting possibilities. One of them said that the joke really was about the loss of control of migration. Another one said that the joke was about the fear of the power the island of Puerto Rico.
It was a paradoxical exercise for me. On the one hand, I managed to redirect the racist energy of the joke, calling attention to the joker rather than the butt.
My students successfully inverted the dynamic of the joke. Like good analysts, they revealed the unspoken fears and anxieties of the comedian. Bringing him down a notch.
On the other, hard as I tried not to take the joke personally, and to turn it into a symptom of a racist pathology, it also made me feel bad to repeat it, and to see myself through the eyes of the comedian, as the butt of his ill-conceived joke.
After further reflection, perhaps by writing this essay, I’m doing more than recycling the comedian’s pathological garbage.
Perhaps I’m also turning our racist stereotypes into food for thought.
Benigno Trigo
Benigno Trigo is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities, Spanish and Portuguese College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University.
Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania
Meredith Lee Hill
Mon, October 28, 2024
US comedian Tony Hinchcliffe speaks during a campaign rally for former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27, 2024. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)More
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, particularlynearly 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.
"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.\\
Mon, October 28, 2024
US comedian Tony Hinchcliffe speaks during a campaign rally for former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27, 2024. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)More
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, particularlynearly 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.
"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.\\
Puerto Ricans in must-win Pennsylvania say Trump rally joke won’t be forgotten
Bernd Debusmann Jr - BBC News
Tue, October 29, 2024
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways
In the North Philadelphia neighbourhood of Fairhill, signs of Puerto Rico are never far off.
The US island territory's red, white and blue flag adorns homes and businesses, and the sounds of salsa and reggaetón boom from passing cars and restaurants selling fried plantains and spit-roasted pork.
The area is the beating heart of Philadelphia's more than 90,000-strong Puerto Rican population and forms a key part of Pennsylvania's Latino community, which both the Democrats and Republicans have sought to woo ahead of the 5 November election.
But on Monday morning, many locals were left seething at a joke made at Donald Trump's rally the night before in New York, in which comic Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as an "island of garbage".
The joke, some said, could come back to haunt the Republicans in a key swing state that Democrats won by a narrow margin of 1.17% - about 82,000 votes - in 2020.
"The campaign just hurt itself, so much. It's crazy to me," said Ivonne Torres Miranda, a local resident who said she remains disillusioned by both candidates - Republican Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris - with just eight days to go in the campaign.
"Even if he [Mr Hinchcliffe ] was joking - you don't joke like that.
"We're Puerto Ricans. We have dignity, and we have pride," she told the BBC, speaking in rapid-fire Spanish with a strong Puerto Rican accent.
"You've got to think before saying things."
In the aftermath, the Trump campaign was quick to distance itself from Mr Hinchcliffe's joke, with a spokesman saying the remark "does not reflect the views" of Trump or his campaign.
The Harris campaign pounced on the joke, with the vice-president pointing to the comment as a sign that Trump is "fanning the fuel of trying to divide" Americans.
Her views were echoed by Puerto Rican celebrities Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez, who both endorsed Harris on Sunday.
A campaign official told CBS, the BBC's US partner, that the controversy was a political gift to the Democrats.
Some Puerto Rican residents agree with that assessment.
"[The joke] just put it in the bag for us. He literally just gave us the win," said Jessie Ramos, a Harris supporter. "He has no idea how hard the Latino community is going to come out and support Kamala Harris."
Residents of Puerto Rico - a US island territory in the Caribbean - are unable to vote in presidential elections, but the large diaspora in the US can.
Across Pennsylvania, about 600,000 eligible voters are Latino.
More than 470,000 of them are Puerto Ricans - one of the largest concentrations in the country and a potential deciding factor in a state where polls show Harris and Trump in an extremely tight race.
North Philadelphia in particular has been a target for Harris, who on Sunday made a campaign stop at Freddy & Tony's, a Puerto Rican restaurant and community hub in Fairhill.
The same day, Harris unveiled a new policy platform for Puerto Rico, promising economic development and improved disaster relief and accusing Trump of having "abandoned and insulted" the island during Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Whether or not this will sway Puerto Rican voters remains to be seen.
Freddy & Tony's owner, Dalma Santiago, told the BBC that she is not sure whether the joke will make a difference but that she believed that it was heard "loud and clear" in Fairhill and other Puerto Rican communities.
"Everybody has their own opinion," she told the BBC. "But nobody will be forgetting that one."
Kamala Harris has accused Donald Trump of neglecting Puerto Rico during his time in the White House, including by withholding disaster aid during Hurricane Maria in 2017. [Getty Images]
Similarly, Moses Santana, a 13-year US Army veteran who works at a harm reduction facility in Fairhill, said he is unsure of the joke's impact.
In an interview with the BBC on a Fairhill street corner, Mr Santana said the area is traditionally weary of politicians of all kinds, with many believing that both parties have failed to address socio-economic issues, crime and drug abuse there.
"Folks around here tend not to get what they ask for," he added. "Even when they vote."
On Tuesday, Trump will campaign in Allentown, a town of about 125,000 in Pennsylvania where about 33,000 people identify as Puerto Rican.
But even among Trump supporters in Pennsylvania's wider Latino community, the joke was poorly received.
That included Republican voter Jessenia Anderson, a Puerto Rican resident from the town of Johnstown about 240 miles (386 km) west of Philadelphia.
Ms Anderson, a military veteran who was born in New York's heavily Puerto Rican Lower East Side, is a frequent attendee of Trump rallies in Pennsylvania.
She described the joke as "deeply offensive" and said the routine felt "wildly out of place" - and implored her fellow Republicans to engage in "thoughtful and respectful conversations".
But Ms Anderson has no plan to switch her vote.
"My belief in the party's potential to make a positive impact remains strong," she said.
"I hope they will approach Latino voters with the respect they deserve."
[BBC]
Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania
Meredith Lee Hill
Mon, October 28, 2024
US comedian Tony Hinchcliffe speaks during a campaign rally for former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27, 2024.
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.
"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.
Bernd Debusmann Jr - BBC News
Tue, October 29, 2024
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways
In the North Philadelphia neighbourhood of Fairhill, signs of Puerto Rico are never far off.
The US island territory's red, white and blue flag adorns homes and businesses, and the sounds of salsa and reggaetón boom from passing cars and restaurants selling fried plantains and spit-roasted pork.
The area is the beating heart of Philadelphia's more than 90,000-strong Puerto Rican population and forms a key part of Pennsylvania's Latino community, which both the Democrats and Republicans have sought to woo ahead of the 5 November election.
But on Monday morning, many locals were left seething at a joke made at Donald Trump's rally the night before in New York, in which comic Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as an "island of garbage".
The joke, some said, could come back to haunt the Republicans in a key swing state that Democrats won by a narrow margin of 1.17% - about 82,000 votes - in 2020.
"The campaign just hurt itself, so much. It's crazy to me," said Ivonne Torres Miranda, a local resident who said she remains disillusioned by both candidates - Republican Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris - with just eight days to go in the campaign.
"Even if he [Mr Hinchcliffe ] was joking - you don't joke like that.
"We're Puerto Ricans. We have dignity, and we have pride," she told the BBC, speaking in rapid-fire Spanish with a strong Puerto Rican accent.
"You've got to think before saying things."
In the aftermath, the Trump campaign was quick to distance itself from Mr Hinchcliffe's joke, with a spokesman saying the remark "does not reflect the views" of Trump or his campaign.
The Harris campaign pounced on the joke, with the vice-president pointing to the comment as a sign that Trump is "fanning the fuel of trying to divide" Americans.
Her views were echoed by Puerto Rican celebrities Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez, who both endorsed Harris on Sunday.
A campaign official told CBS, the BBC's US partner, that the controversy was a political gift to the Democrats.
Some Puerto Rican residents agree with that assessment.
"[The joke] just put it in the bag for us. He literally just gave us the win," said Jessie Ramos, a Harris supporter. "He has no idea how hard the Latino community is going to come out and support Kamala Harris."
Residents of Puerto Rico - a US island territory in the Caribbean - are unable to vote in presidential elections, but the large diaspora in the US can.
Across Pennsylvania, about 600,000 eligible voters are Latino.
More than 470,000 of them are Puerto Ricans - one of the largest concentrations in the country and a potential deciding factor in a state where polls show Harris and Trump in an extremely tight race.
North Philadelphia in particular has been a target for Harris, who on Sunday made a campaign stop at Freddy & Tony's, a Puerto Rican restaurant and community hub in Fairhill.
The same day, Harris unveiled a new policy platform for Puerto Rico, promising economic development and improved disaster relief and accusing Trump of having "abandoned and insulted" the island during Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Whether or not this will sway Puerto Rican voters remains to be seen.
Freddy & Tony's owner, Dalma Santiago, told the BBC that she is not sure whether the joke will make a difference but that she believed that it was heard "loud and clear" in Fairhill and other Puerto Rican communities.
"Everybody has their own opinion," she told the BBC. "But nobody will be forgetting that one."
Kamala Harris has accused Donald Trump of neglecting Puerto Rico during his time in the White House, including by withholding disaster aid during Hurricane Maria in 2017. [Getty Images]
Similarly, Moses Santana, a 13-year US Army veteran who works at a harm reduction facility in Fairhill, said he is unsure of the joke's impact.
In an interview with the BBC on a Fairhill street corner, Mr Santana said the area is traditionally weary of politicians of all kinds, with many believing that both parties have failed to address socio-economic issues, crime and drug abuse there.
"Folks around here tend not to get what they ask for," he added. "Even when they vote."
On Tuesday, Trump will campaign in Allentown, a town of about 125,000 in Pennsylvania where about 33,000 people identify as Puerto Rican.
But even among Trump supporters in Pennsylvania's wider Latino community, the joke was poorly received.
That included Republican voter Jessenia Anderson, a Puerto Rican resident from the town of Johnstown about 240 miles (386 km) west of Philadelphia.
Ms Anderson, a military veteran who was born in New York's heavily Puerto Rican Lower East Side, is a frequent attendee of Trump rallies in Pennsylvania.
She described the joke as "deeply offensive" and said the routine felt "wildly out of place" - and implored her fellow Republicans to engage in "thoughtful and respectful conversations".
But Ms Anderson has no plan to switch her vote.
"My belief in the party's potential to make a positive impact remains strong," she said.
"I hope they will approach Latino voters with the respect they deserve."
[BBC]
Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania
Meredith Lee Hill
Mon, October 28, 2024
US comedian Tony Hinchcliffe speaks during a campaign rally for former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27, 2024.
(Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
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, particularlynearly 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.
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, particularlynearly 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.
"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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