ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Urged by some allies to apologize for racist feedback made by audio system at his weekend rally, Donald Trump took the other strategy on Tuesday, saying it was an “honor to be involved” in such an occasion and calling the scene a “lovefest” — the identical time period he has used to explain the Jan. 6 rebellion on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump gathered supporters and reporters to his Mar-a-Lago resort two days after a large rally at Madison Sq. Backyard featured quite a few crude remarks by numerous audio system, together with a set by comic Tony Hinchcliffe during which he joked that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.” A few of Trump’s high Republican allies have condemned the remarks, and his marketing campaign took the uncommon step of publicly distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s joke, although not the opposite feedback.
However given the chance to apologize at a number of occasions and in interviews Tuesday, Trump as an alternative leaned in. Talking at his Florida resort, he mentioned that “there’s never been an event so beautiful” as his Sunday rally in his hometown of New York.
“The love in that room. It was breathtaking,” he mentioned. “It was like a lovefest, an absolute lovefest. And it was my honor to be involved.”
With only a week earlier than Election Day, some Trump allies have voiced alarm that the rally, which was supposed to spotlight the Republican presidential nominee’s closing message in grand New York vogue, has as an alternative served as a distraction and even a legal responsibility, given the electoral significance of Puerto Ricans who stay in Pennsylvania and different key swing states.
Trump later held a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a metropolis with a big Hispanic inhabitants, the place Puerto Rico’s shadow U.S. senator, Zoraida Buxo, joined him and defended the previous president’s document.
“We need this man to be our commander in chief,” mentioned Buxo, who can not vote within the Senate as a result of Puerto Rico just isn’t a state. “He will make us feel safe and he will protect us.”
Nonetheless, there was anger in Allentown. Ivet Figueroa, 61, stood outdoors the rally venue holding a trash can with the phrases “Trash Trump” on it.
She mentioned of the insult and Trump:: “The person who said it was vetted by him. So that’s what he allowed, so he has to take responsibility for what he said. Now it’s too late for saying ‘sorry.’ I don’t want an apology, I want justice, and justice is on Nov. 5.”
The fallout from the Madison Sq. Backyard occasion risked highlighting voters’ issues about Trump’s rhetoric and penchant for controversy within the closing stretch as each campaigns are scrambling for votes. Audio system on the rally additionally made racist feedback focusing on Latinos, Black individuals, Jews and Palestinians, together with sexist insults directed at Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“I don’t know him. Someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is,” Trump mentioned, based on the community, insisting that he hadn’t heard Hinchcliffe’s feedback. When requested what he product of them, Trump “did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn’t hear the comments,” ABC reported.
Within the Hannity interview, Trump mentioned individuals have been making an attempt to make the comic’s look right into a “big deal” when it “has nothing to do with the party, has nothing to do with us.”
Requested later within the interview whether or not he wished the comedian wasn’t there, Trump mentioned, “Yeah, I mean I don’t know if it’s a big deal or not, but I don’t want anybody making nasty jokes or stupid jokes.” He added, “Probably he shouldn’t have been there, yeah.”
Later Tuesday, President Joe Biden, on a name organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino, denounced the comedian’s joke and mentioned, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” He later tried to make clear his remark, saying he was speaking about “the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter.”
The feedback from the Madison Sq. Backyard rally have drawn outrage from Puerto Rican leaders.
The archbishop of Puerto Rico referred to as on Trump to disavow them, saying it wasn’t sufficient for the marketing campaign to say the joke didn’t replicate Trump’s views. The president of Puerto Rico’s Republican Celebration referred to as the “poor attempt at comedy” by Hinchcliffe “disgraceful, ignorant and totally reprehensible.”
In Pennsylvania, the place Trump campaigned Tuesday night time, the Latino eligible voter inhabitants has almost tripled since 2000. Greater than half of these are Puerto Rican voters.
Angelo Ortega, a longtime Allentown resident and former Republican who’s planning to vote for Harris, mentioned he couldn’t imagine what he’d heard about Trump’s rally.
“I don’t know if my jaw dropped or I was just so irritated, angry. I didn’t know what to feel,” mentioned Ortega, who was born in New York however whose father got here from Puerto Rico. Ortega has been campaigning for Harris and mentioned he is aware of of at the least one Hispanic GOP voter planning to change from Trump to Harris on account of Hinchcliffe’s feedback.
“They’ve had it. They’ve had it. They were listening to (Trump), but they said they think that that was like the straw that broke the camel’s back,” mentioned Ortega, a member of the Make the Street PA advocacy group.
Nonetheless, some voters of Puerto Rican descent weren’t fazed. Maricelis Torres, 24, a waitress finding out to be a radiologist, waited to get into the Allentown rally and mentioned she and her household laughed at Hinchcliffe’s joke.
“If you don’t understand humor, then that’s what I’m saying, people are way too soft these days,” mentioned Torres, whose father is from the island.
The Harris marketing campaign has launched an advert that may run on-line in battleground states focusing on Puerto Rican voters and highlighting the comic’s remarks.
At a roundtable outdoors Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon, Trump acquired some reward from a retired occupational therapist from Puerto Rico, Maribel Valdez. “Puerto Rico stands behind you, and Puerto Rico loves you,” Valdez informed him.
Trump thanked her and reminisced about his administration’s efforts to assist the island after storms. “I think no president has ever done more for Puerto Rico than I have,” responded Trump, who delayed the discharge of billions of {dollars} in help to restore years-old hurricane injury in Puerto Rico till shortly earlier than the 2020 election.
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Gomez Licon and Worth reported from Palm Seashore, Fla. Related Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
