Urged by some allies to apologize for racist comments made by speakers at his weekend rally, Donald Trump took the opposite approach on Tuesday, October 29, saying it was an "honor to be involved" in such an event and calling the scene a "lovefest" – the same term he has used to describe the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol.
Trump 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 "floating island of garbage." Some of Trump's top Republican allies have condemned the remarks, and his campaign took the rare step of publicly distancing itself from Hinchcliffe's joke, though not the other comments.
However, given the opportunity to apologize, both at Mar-a-Lago and in an earlier ABC interview, Trump instead leaned in. Speaking at his Florida resort, he said 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 said. "It was like a lovefest, an absolute lovefest. And it was my honor to be involved."
On Tuesday, Trump tried to move past the controversy and pivot back to Harris, lashing his rival's record on the border and inflation, saying that, "on issue after issue, she broke it" and "I'm going to fix it and fix it very fast." Trump, who has painted a dark and disturbing picture of life in America since he left office, featured several speakers who shared painful stories, including Tammy Nobles, whose daughter was allegedly killed by gang members living in the country illegally.
He also announced that, if he wins, he will seize the assets of criminal gangs and drug cartels and use those assets "to create a compensation fund to provide restitution for the victims of migrant crime."
In an interview with ABC News earlier Tuesday, Trump tried to distance himself from Hinchcliffe but did not denounce what he said. "I don't know him. Someone put him up there. I don't know who he is," Trump said, according to the network, insisting that he hadn't heard Hinchcliffe's comments. When asked what he made of them, Trump "did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn't hear the comments," ABC reported.
The comments have drawn outrage from Puerto Rican leaders. The archbishop of Puerto Rico called on Trump to disavow them, saying it wasn't enough for the campaign to say the joke didn't reflect Trump's views.
The president of Puerto Rico's Republican Party called the "poor attempt at comedy" by Hinchcliffe "disgraceful, ignorant and totally reprehensible."
In Pennsylvania, where Trump was to campaign later on Tuesday, the Latino eligible voter population has nearly tripled since 2000. More than half of those are Puerto Rican eligible voters.
The Harris campaign has released an ad that will run online in battleground states targeting Puerto Rican voters and highlighting the comedian's remarks.