Key Points
- Democrats, celebrities and some Republicans denounced a comedian who called Puerto Rico ‘garbage’ at a Trump rally.
- Puerto Ricans are a key demographic for both campaigns.
- The Trump campaign has distanced itself from the comments.
A comedian calling Puerto Rico “garbage” before a packed Donald Trump rally in New York has resulted in expressions of fury that could affect the United States presidential election.
What did Tony Hinchcliffe say?
Speaking before Donald Trump at a major rally in New York’s Madison Square Gaden on Monday, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”.
Hinchcliffe said Latinos “love making babies” and that they do not “pull out”, comments that leaned into a racist trope that Latinos are preoccupied with childbearing and averse to birth control.
The comedian and podcaster’s set also included lewd and racist comments about Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election.
He said he and a Black audience member “carved watermelons together” while Jews “have a hard time throwing that paper”, an apparent reference to a stereotype that Jewish people are cheap.
The presidential campaign of vice president Kamala Harris, Democrats, several prominent Puerto Rican celebrities and some congressional Republicans denounced the comments, which were widely panned as racist.
The Trump campaign itself said the comments did not reflect Trump’s views. Trump himself has not commented on Hinchcliffe’s performance, though he has leaned into racist and sexist rhetoric on the campaign trail.
Why does Puerto Rico matter?
Puerto Rico is an American island territory in the Caribbean. Residents there cannot take part in the presidential elections, but the diaspora living in the US totals almost six million, according to the Pew Research Center, and is eligible to vote.
While Puerto Ricans cannot vote in general elections despite being US citizens, they can exert a powerful influence with relatives on the mainland.
Americans of Puerto Rican origin or ancestry are an important demographic in some , including Pennsylvania.
“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 wrote on X.
Both candidates are fighting for the Latino vote, which has trended more Republican in recent years but still leans Democratic.
What does Bad Bunny have to do with it?
Puerto Rican celebrities, including rapper Bad Bunny, singer Ricky Martin, and actress-singer Jennifer Lopez, threw their support behind Harris after Hinchcliffe’s appearance at Trump’s rally.
Bad Bunny, who has 45 million followers on Instagram, reshared a video of Harris attacking Trump’s response to hurricanes that devastated the island while the Republican was president. It was his first apparent gesture of support for the Democratic candidate.
“He abandoned the island, tried to block aid after back-to-back devastating hurricanes and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults,” Harris says in the clip.
Harris also launched a new ad targeting Puerto Rican voters, promising “a new way forward”.
How did Puerto Ricans react?
Milagros Serrano, 81, has a son who lives in the swing state of Pennsylvania and said the entire family was outraged by the comedian’s comments.
“He can’t be talking about Puerto Rico like that,” she said.
“He’s the one who’s a piece of garbage.”
Those who stayed behind say they often feel like second-class citizens because they can’t vote in presidential elections and receive limited federal funding compared with US states.
That festering resentment erupted when Trump visited Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria slammed into the island as a powerful Category 4 storm in 2017.
He tossed paper towels into a crowd and denied the storm’s official death toll, with experts estimating that nearly 3,000 people died in the aftermath.
José Acevedo, a 48-year-old health worker from San Juan, shook his head as he recalled how he felt when he watched the Sunday rally.
“What humiliation, what discrimination!” he said on Monday as he waited to catch a public bus to work.
Acevedo said he immediately texted relatives in New York, including an uncle who is a Republican and had planned to vote for Trump.
“He told me that he was going to have to analyse his decision,” Acevedo said, adding that his relatives were in shock.
“They couldn’t believe it.”
Still, some Trump allies were less concerned. The former president and his allies have leaned into personal insults and racist rhetoric in the campaign’s final months, but his standing in the polls has not deteriorated.
“Politically, it is a non-issue,” said David Tamasi, a fundraiser for Republicans.
“An undecided voter is very unlikely to be swayed by a remark, impolitic as it was, made on a Sunday night by an unknown comic.”
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