ALLENTOWN, Pennsylvania: Urged by some allies to apologize for racist comments made by speakers at his weekend rally, Donald Trump took the opposite approach on Tuesday, saying it was an \u201chonor to be involved\u201d in such an event and calling the scene a \u201clovefest\u201d \u2014 the same term he has used to describe the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
\nTrump gathered supporters and reporters to his Mar-a-Lago resort two days after a massive rally at Madison Square Garden featured a number of crude remarks by various speakers, including a set by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe in which he joked that Puerto Rico was a \u201cfloating island of garbage.\u201d Some of Trump\u2019s top Republican allies have condemned the remarks, and his campaign took the rare step of publicly distancing itself from Hinchcliffe\u2019s joke, though not the other comments.
\nBut given the opportunity to apologize at multiple events and in interviews Tuesday, Trump instead leaned in. Speaking at his Florida resort, he said that \u201cthere\u2019s never been an event so beautiful\u201d as his Sunday rally in his hometown of New York.
\n\u201cThe love in that room. It was breathtaking,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was like a lovefest, an absolute lovefest. And it was my honor to be involved.\u201d
\nOn Tuesday night, he told Fox News\u2019 Sean Hannity that he knows nothing about Hinchcliffe but said, \u201cI can\u2019t imagine it\u2019s a big deal.\u201d He later agreed, though, that \u201cprobably he shouldn\u2019t have been there.\u201d
\nWith just a week before Election Day, some Trump allies have voiced alarm that the rally, which was supposed to highlight the Republican presidential nominee\u2019s closing message in grand New York fashion, has instead served as a distraction and even a liability, given the electoral importance of Puerto Ricans who live in Pennsylvania and other key swing states.
\n\u201cThis is not a time to have anyone criticize Puerto Rico or Latinos,\u201d former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump for the GOP presidential nomination and later endorsed him, said in an interview with Fox News Channel.
\nTrump later held a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a city with a large Hispanic population, where Puerto Rico\u2019s shadow US senator, Zoraida Buxo, joined him and defended the former president\u2019s record.
\n\u201cWe need this man to be our commander in chief,\u201d said Buxo, who cannot vote in the Senate because Puerto Rico is not a state. \u201cHe will make us feel safe and he will protect us.\u201d
\nStill, there was anger in Allentown. Ivet Figueroa, 61, stood outside the rally venue holding a trash can with the words \u201cTrash Trump\u201d on it.
\nShe said of the insult and Trump:: \u201cThe person who said it was vetted by him. So that\u2019s what he allowed, so he has to take responsibility for what he said. Now it\u2019s too late for saying \u2018sorry.\u2019 I don\u2019t want an apology, I want justice, and justice is on Nov. 5.\u201d
\nThe fallout from the Madison Square Garden event risked highlighting voters\u2019 concerns about Trump\u2019s rhetoric and penchant for controversy in the closing stretch as both campaigns are scrambling for votes. Speakers at the rally also made racist comments targeting Latinos, Black people, Jews and Palestinians, along with sexist insults directed at Trump\u2019s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
\nIn an interview with ABC News earlier Tuesday, Trump claimed to not know Hinchcliffe but did not denounce what he said.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know him. Someone put him up there. I don\u2019t know who he is,\u201d Trump said, according to the network, insisting that he hadn\u2019t heard Hinchcliffe\u2019s comments. When asked what he made of them, Trump \u201cdid not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn\u2019t hear the comments,\u201d ABC reported.
\nIn the Hannity interview, Trump said people were trying to make the comedian\u2019s appearance into a \u201cbig deal\u201d when it \u201chas nothing to do with the party, has nothing to do with us.\u201d
\nAsked later in the interview whether he wished the comic wasn\u2019t there, Trump said, \u201cYeah, I mean I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a big deal or not, but I don\u2019t want anybody making nasty jokes or stupid jokes.\u201d He added, \u201cProbably he shouldn\u2019t have been there, yeah.\u201d
\nLater Tuesday, President Joe Biden, on a call organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino, denounced the comic\u2019s joke and said, \u201cThe only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.\u201d He later tried to clarify his comment, saying he was talking about \u201cthe hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump\u2019s supporter.\u201d
\nThe comments from the Madison Square Garden rally have drawn outrage from Puerto Rican leaders.
\nThe archbishop of Puerto Rico called on Trump to disavow them, saying it wasn\u2019t enough for the campaign to say the joke didn\u2019t reflect Trump\u2019s views. The president of Puerto Rico\u2019s Republican Party called the \u201cpoor attempt at comedy\u201d by Hinchcliffe \u201cdisgraceful, ignorant and totally reprehensible.\u201d
\nIn Pennsylvania, where Trump campaigned Tuesday night, the Latino eligible voter population has nearly tripled since 2000. More than half of those are Puerto Rican voters.
\nAngelo Ortega, a longtime Allentown resident and former Republican who\u2019s planning to vote for Harris, said he couldn\u2019t believe what he\u2019d heard about Trump\u2019s rally.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know if my jaw dropped or I was just so irritated, angry. I didn\u2019t know what to feel,\u201d said Ortega, who was born in New York but whose father came from Puerto Rico. Ortega has been 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\u2019s comments.
\n\u201cThey\u2019ve had it. They\u2019ve had it. They were listening to (Trump), but they said they think that that was like the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back,\u201d said Ortega, a member of the Make the Road PA advocacy group.
\nStill, some voters of Puerto Rican descent weren\u2019t fazed. Maricelis Torres, 24, a waitress studying to be a radiologist, waited to get into the Allentown rally and said she and her family laughed at Hinchcliffe\u2019s joke.
\n\u201cIf you don\u2019t understand humor, then that\u2019s what I\u2019m saying, people are way too soft these days,\u201d said Torres, whose father is from the island.
\nThe Harris campaign has released an ad that will run online in battleground states targeting Puerto Rican voters and highlighting the comedian\u2019s remarks.
\nAt a roundtable outside Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon, Trump got some praise from a retired occupational therapist from Puerto Rico, Maribel Valdez. \u201cPuerto Rico stands behind you, and Puerto Rico loves you,\u201d Valdez told him.
\nTrump thanked her and reminisced about his administration\u2019s efforts to help the island after storms. \u201cI think no president has ever done more for Puerto Rico than I have,\u201d responded Trump, who delayed the release of billions of dollars in assistance to repair years-old hurricane damage in Puerto Rico until shortly before the 2020 election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ALLENTOWN, Pennsylvania: Urged by some allies to apologize for racist comments made by speakers at his weekend rally, Donald Trump took the opposite approach on Tuesday, saying it was an \u201chonor to be involved\u201d in such an event and calling the scene a \u201clovefest\u201d \u2014 the same term he has used to describe the Jan. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72261,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72247\/revisions\/72261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}