Trump team distances itself from comedian’s racist rhetoric

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s remarks at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally likening Puerto Rico to a ‘floating island of garbage’ could cost the Republicans the Hispanic vote.

US comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made racist jokes during Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump’s campaign team has sought to distance itself from a comedian who targeted Puerto Ricans with racist rhetoric at the former president’s campaign rally on Monday (AEDT).

During an appearance at Mr Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, comedian and podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe, likened the US island territory of Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage.”

Amid a fierce backlash to the comments, which came just eight days ahead of a presidential election that could be determined by the Latino vote, Mr Trump’s team released a statement saying the joke “does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

Residents of Puerto Rico, an American island territory in the Caribbean, cannot take part in US elections but the diaspora living in the United States numbers almost six million, according to Pew Research Center, and is eligible to vote.

They could have significant sway in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, which has the fourth-largest concentration of Puerto Rican residents after Florida, New York and New Jersey.

“Who wants to tell these guys there are HALF A MILLION Puerto Ricans living in Battleground PA, whose votes are up for grabs?” former Trump White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin posted on X.

During the rally, Hinchcliffe also made racist remarks about African-Americans and Hispanic immigrants’ sex lives.

Other speakers made sexist and crude remarks about Trump’s election rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, ensuring that the rhetoric upstaged Trump’s big policy rollout, a tax credit for home caregivers.

In a potent split screen, the scandal blew up as Kamala Harris was speaking at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s largest city, where she outlined plans to boost the territory’s electrical grid.

Moments after Hinchcliffe’s remarks, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny – one of the world’s top Hispanic celebrities – shared Ms Harris’s plan with millions of social media followers.

And Trump supporter and Republican Florida senator Rick Scott, who is in a tight race for re-election against a Latina congresswoman, was among Republican politicians and strategists who voiced anger on X.

“This joke bombed for a reason. It’s not funny and it’s not true,” he posted, while the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which has around three dozen members, called the rally “shameful.”

Elisa Covarrubias, 42, an activist working to get out the Latino vote in Georgia, called the Trump event a “big political mistake” and said it “makes you feel that the Republicans don’t want us here, in this country.”

Ms Harris, on the campaign trail in Michigan, told reporters the rally highlighted how Mr Trump is “focused, and actually fixated, on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country.” “If he were elected, on day one he’s going to be sitting in the Oval Office, working on his enemies list,” she said.

“On day one, if I’m elected president of the United States, which I fully intend to be, I will be working on behalf of the American people on my to-do list.” Speaking to reporters as he voted Monday, President Joe Biden called the scandal “embarrassing” and “beneath a president.”