Latino ‘jokes’ Donald Trump’s ‘f-you’ to the city that grew him
So what did Trump rally comic Tony Hinchcliffe actually say about Latino Americans and Puerto Ricans? Our correspondent Adam Creighton, who was at Madison Square Garden, says the distasteful routine all part of Trump’s grand plan.
A Donald Trump rally opens with an epic, florid rendition of the national anthem.
Then, a prayer: “We thank you for blessing us all to live in the United States of America.”
It’ll be another six hours before the man himself takes the stage – and our correspondent, Adam Creighton, was there.
This is an edited transcript of our daily news podcast, The Front, where Creighton joins host Claire Harvey.
Before a crowd of 20,000, Donald Trump asked: “I’d like to begin today by asking a very simple question – are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
“Noooooo,” bellowed the enraptured crowd.
“I will end inflation, I will stop the invasion of criminals coming into our country and I will bring back the American dream,” Trump went on.
“It’s hardworking patriots like you who are going to save our country.”
Claire Harvey: “Adam, what is it that makes Donald Trump such a magnetic, unmissable presence on stage?”
Adam Creighton: “Yeah, look, that’s a very good question actually because he speaks for so long at these events. Tonight he spoke for over 60 minutes and of course as someone who follows him I’ve heard it all 100 times before. Although the stadium was packed, Madison Square Garden was at capacity, 20,000 people which is quite big – people were leaving at the start of his speech, which I thought was interesting, I spoke to one woman who’d flown all the way from California just to go, and she’d camped out the night before to get a good spot in the line, but that’s not an unusual story actually.
“I don’t know how to explain it because he’s not classically a good speaker. He obviously has a very distinctive style, but I think it really just goes to the anger that so many Americans feel, and he channels their rage. and they support him.
“There’s so much political rage in America. There’s anger about inflation. There’s fury about the Southern border. And Trump is the politician that you support if you’re angry about those things. And, you know, I don’t think it really matters how he speaks. I don’t think it matters about his affairs, about his legal cases. clearly it doesn’t because he’s now currently the favourite to win.”
Claire Harvey: “That, vision of people leaving – that’s something that Kamala Harris goaded him with during the presidential debate quite successfully. It seemed to me that when she raised that, that knocked Trump off his axis a little bit and he was very, became very defensive and kind of lost his thread. So what you’re saying is: it’s true. People are walking out, but maybe not because they’re bored?”
Adam Creighton: “Yeah, I don’t want to exaggerate the extent, but certainly, there were, I would say hundreds of people leaving after he started.
“He was meant to speak at 5, and he started at 7. 40. Which is really late. Really late. I mean, that’s two and a half hours late.
“I imagine the average income in that stadium was lower than the average income in New York, because everyone I spoke to was from a different state, mainly from New Jersey, the ones I spoke to, so they travelled a good hour at least, to get there, and they probably had trains to get.”
The first act was a comedian called Tony Hinchcliffe, whose routine has become the big news story from the rally.
His question: “Where are my proud Latinos at tonight?” was greeted with a cautious cheer from the crowd.
Claire Harvey: What was the reaction of the crowd to, to, to those kind of jokes?
Adam Creighton: “I don’t even want to say it almost on the front because it was quite crude.”
Tony Hinchcliffe: “These Latinos, they love makin’ babies, they do, they do, they come inside, there’s no pulling out, they don’t do that. just like they did to our country.”
As the audience gasped, and some laughed, Hinchcliffe noted: “Republicans are the party with a good sense of humour.”
Adam Creighton: “I winced actually, because it was pretty distasteful. And of course, Democrats seized on that straight away. And the Puerto Rican joke was somewhat strange.”
Tony Hinchcliffe: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the Caribbean right now, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
Adam Creighton: “This guy described it as a heap of trash. I don’t know why you’d do that, because it’s part of the US, and there’s lots of Puerto Ricans in the US, and I don’t, it was just somewhat gratuitous and unnecessary to make that joke, but anyway, he did. And I saw numerous high profile Democrats on social media saying if the Dems don’t do a campaign ad on that joke, they’re crazy,
“I think the Republican strategists would have been pretty annoyed about that joke. So, you know, for Trump, it was really, you know, I think it was really an f-you to the establishment in New York, And this of course is the city that he grew up in. He knows it very well. And it’s, you know, politically unusual to do a campaign rally in a solid blue state so close to voting day, but that’s what Trump did.
“I have no doubt it was his decision because all the political people would have been saying, why don’t you go and, you know, do this in a swing state? His media savvy is extraordinary. And he knows that the fact he did it in New York will be a major media story. The whole thing has completely dominated the US media cycle, the whole thing. it’s got far more attention than, you know, than any Harris rally has got in recent days. you know, despite the fact she’s had all these huge stars.”
Claire Harvey: “Speaking of Harris’s rallies, I’ve been interested to see in recent days the calibre of stars who she’s had on stage with her. Bruce Springsteen the other day, Beyonce more recently.”
Beyonce: “So let’s do this. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a big, loud Texas welcome to the next. President of the United States, vice president Kamala Harris!”
Claire Harvey: And it does make me wonder whether this is going to help Kamala Harris or if it’s going to make her look more elite and out of touch, all the things that Donald Trump would criticise about her. What’s your sense of that, Adam, having lived in the States now for a few years – do Americans love Beyonce so much that they will change their vote because of who Beyonce endorses?”
Adam Creighton: “No, look, my view is that these don’t help Harris. you know, there was a lot of anxiety amongst Republicans with the Taylor Swift announcement, when she endorsed Harris very publicly on Instagram, but (Harris) got no bounce from that.
“You know, these people are very rich, you know, like they are extraordinarily rich. Swift and Beyonce are both billionaires. So, you know, the ordinary American who’s struggling with inflation and earning 60, 000 a year, if that. You know, I think that they resent those sort of endorsements. That’s my sense. And in fact, there is also an academic literature that says they don’t help either.”
“The momentum now is definitely, you know, nine days out. It is definitely with Trump. Yeah. if you look at all sources, whether it’s polls or betting markets, or even the interesting one is the share price of Trump’s crappy media company, which has no revenue, but in the past month, it’s, it’s tripled in price.”
Claire Harvey: “So can we believe the polls, and is Trump going to win? I don’t know about you, but I’ve given up taking American polls seriously. They were wrong in 2016, when Trump first blindsided the political establishment to win. They were wrong again in 2020, when nobody thought Joe Biden could dispatch him.
“This campaign, Kamala Harris had an early lead, but over the weekend some polling indicated that lead was coming back to even.
“Nate Silver is an analyst who shot to fame for accurately predicting virtually every state’s vote in the 2008 election that brought Barack Obama to power. He’s been right on numerous other occasions.
“In 2016 – just like every other statistician – he didn’t think Trump would win. But he gave Trump a better chance than almost anyone else – so I guess you could say he was less wrong than the others.
“The issue back then, as now, is that you can only deal with what voters are telling pollsters, and in this case Harris is trying to win over women – including Republican women – who’ve never voted for a Democrat, and the Republicans are hoping men will come out of the woodwork to vote for Trump.
“Those things are hard to predict in polling – because they’re decisions people might make on the drive to the voting booth. Or they might decide to switch at the last minute. Or not vote at all.
“I leaned on Adam – taking advantage of the fact he was exhausted after his big day at the rally – to make a prediction for us.”
Adam Creighton: “You know at this stage I’d have to say Trump is going to win. But what I struggle with is just that if he wins, it’s the most incredible political comeback in world history, I would say. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.
“And I can’t imagine it almost because he’s just got so much baggage. He’s so hated by a large minority of the American population and it is unfathomable. I mean, you think back two years ago when he launched his campaign, everyone derided him, including me, as a has been, as a problem, as someone the Republicans needed to get rid of.
“And he’s proved everyone wrong. there’s something about him. He has the X factor. Yeah. So if you’re forcing me to predict, I would say Trump will win. But, you know, there’s still nine days to go and, and it could get very rough and aggressive in the next few days. So who knows what’s gonna come out in the news.”
This is an edited transcript of our free daily news podcast The Front. Hear it wherever you get podcasts.
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