Democrats spotlight racist Puerto Rico insult at Trump rally amid battle for Latinos

PHILADELPHIA — Democrats on Monday aggressively rebuked Donald Trump over a rally he hosted featuring racist and demeaning insults, with Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign spotlighting a disparaging comment about Puerto Rico while Trump and his allies strained to try to minimize the fallout.

Amid a heated battle over Latino voters, Harris’s campaign launched a new ad attacking Trump’s record on Puerto Rico and held a news conference in Philadelphia, where Puerto Rican leaders expressed outrage at the Sunday remarks from podcast host and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe. A Democratic super PAC texted hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania to make sure they saw a clip from the rally, in which Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage.” And Hispanic leaders aligned with Harris spoke out sharply against the comment and other remarks broadly disparaging Latinos.

“I will never forget what Donald Trump did. He abandoned the island and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults,” Harris says in the new ad, which references Hinchcliffe’s comments, and will air in battleground states, according to the campaign. “Puerto Ricans deserve better.”

Trump and his allies scrambled to try to contain the backlash from the Sunday rally in New York and direct attention to other topics. “We had a great rally at Madison Square Garden,” Trump said at a faith summit in Powder Springs, Georgia. He talked about his own tendency to use coarse language and did not mention his introductory speakers on the previous day. “Sometimes I’ll use a little bit, not hard foul but soft foul,” he said. “We call it soft foul but, you know, to emphasize something about somebody’s capabilities or whatever I might be talking about.”

Campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in an interview on Fox News that Hinchcliffe made a “joke in poor taste,” but she said the crowd “didn’t mind” and suggested the episode was overblown. Beyond Hinchcliffe, other introductory speakers made sexist, racist and other demeaning comments.

The dueling campaign responses put a renewed focus on how both candidates are competing for voters of color, including Latino voters, whose decisions weigh heavily in several key battleground states where polls show a close race. Here in Pennsylvania, which strategists in both parties regard as perhaps the biggest prize of all, Latinos account for about 6 percent of eligible voters and about half of them are Puerto Rican.

Some Democrats have worried throughout this election season about losing the support of some Latino voters, even as polls show that a majority of them support Harris. In a close race, any erosion in support from a longtime stalwart of the Democratic coalition could be pivotal. The controversy that erupted over the Sunday rally introduced a new element into the race, with voters already casting ballots in key states.

“Donald Trump may have just done what the Harris campaign hasn’t been able to do for the past couple of years, which is move Latino voters against him,” Mike Madrid, a longtime Republican strategist and co-founder of anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said in an interview.

Harris allies hoped to capitalize on negative reactions to the Trump rally to boost her appeal to Puerto Rican and other Latino voters in Pennsylvania and beyond. Latino voters have historically leaned toward Democrats, but Harris has faced some challenges in shoring up their support. Trump has made some inroads with Hispanics amid concerns about inflation and other issues, according to polling, strategists and interviews with voters.

Nuestro PAC, a Democratic super PAC focused on Latinos, began sending texts Monday to Puerto Rican voters to draw attention to Hinchcliffe’s comments at the Trump rally. Chuck Rocha, senior adviser to the organization, said he calculated Sunday after the comments that it would cost about $30,000 to text all Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania, so he issued a request on X for people to donate. Within six hours, he had raised the money from over 450 individual donors, he said.

Now, the super PAC is looking to raise more to begin sending texts to Puerto Ricans in other battleground states, such as Georgia and Michigan. He said he believes that the comments could help in drawing support from Puerto Ricans who have been considering voting for Trump.

“You just don’t mess with a Puerto Rican’s island,” Rocha said. “That’s why I thought it was an opportunity to go tell these people, ‘This is what this guy really thinks about you and your island. Come back home.’”

Rafael Collazo, executive director of UnidosUS Action Fund, the political arm of the largest Latino civil rights organization, summarized Hinchcliffe’s comments as: “Una falta de respeto.” A lack of respect.

The group has been out canvassing in Philadelphia and Reading, Pennsylvania, as well as making phone calls. On Tuesday, UnidosUS Action Fund will announce a major mobilization effort in Philadelphia for this weekend, he said, to further build on the momentum from the outrage Latinos are feeling.

Trump is scheduled to hold a Tuesday rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where more than half the population is Latino and many are Puerto Rican. Both parties have been courting Latinos in the area.

Glenn Geissinger, chair of the neighboring Northampton County GOP, said he expects speakers at the rally will emphasize Trump’s shared values with Latino voters and deliver the message that he “feels that the Puerto Rican community is very important to America and to the campaign.”

Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, Trump’s running mate, said in response to a reporter’s question Monday that he hasn’t “seen” the racist joke disparaging Puerto Rico. “I’m not going to comment on the specifics of the joke, but I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I’m just, I’m so over it,” Vance said to a crowd in Wausau, Wisconsin.

Some Trump allies tried to walk a careful line, criticizing the comments while also trying to defend Trump. In a post on X, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, said he understood why some were offended by Hinchcliffe’s comments “but those weren’t Trump’s words. They were jokes by an insult comic who offends virtually everyone, all the time.” He went on to slam Harris and the media.

Darrell Scott, a pastor and Trump ally who has helped with outreach to voters of color, said the Trump team can only do so much in response. “The Trump campaign did come out and distance themselves from this guy’s remarks — and that’s about all they can do,” he said.

Several Republicans in Congress, who represent areas with large populations of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos, denounced his comments. “This joke bombed for a reason. It’s not funny, and it’s not true,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida, who is up for reelection this year, wrote in a post on X.

Peter Navarro, a former Trump administration official who remains a prominent supporter, on Monday declared Hinchcliffe “the biggest, stupidest” jerk — he used a more colorful term — “that ever came down the comedy pike.”

Madrid, the Lincoln Project co-founder, said it was remarkable to see how Trump’s campaign was distancing itself from the remarks, a rarity for the former president, who often leans into controversy and is known to double down on offensive remarks. Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the campaign, said in a statement that “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

Madrid said he does not expect the episode to move the needle significantly but feels that it could make a difference in moving some Latino votes in key battlegrounds. He expressed caution as he pointed to Trump’s 2016 win, which came after a recording of him surfaced just before the election in which he bragged about groping women. Many predicted at the time that the comment would doom Trump’s bid.

The rally comments drew renewed attention to Trump’s heavily criticized record on Puerto Rico when he was president. Trump’s administration withheld billions of dollars in hurricane relief from the island. He threw paper towel rolls at people when he visited to deliver aid supplies on the island after it was ravaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017, a gesture that critics denounced as offensive. Trump also reportedly joked about trading Puerto Rico for Greenland to get rid of the U.S. territory.

In addition to the new television ad, the Harris campaign also is running several versions of a digital ad in El Nuevo Día, the newspaper with the largest circulation in Puerto Rico, calling for those on the island to urge their family members living on the mainland to vote for Harris. Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. territory cannot vote for president, but the hundreds of thousands living in battleground states across the country can.

Even organizations that don’t typically weigh in on partisan politics waded in. Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of Hispanic Federation, a nonprofit that advocates for Latinos and works on nonpartisan civic engagement, said the “moment has changed completely the game.”

“This is no longer about whether or not the Hispanic Federation can or cannot endorse. This is about civil rights. This is about human rights,” said Miranda, who vowed to aggressively mobilize Latinos in the final days leading up to the Nov. 5 election.

Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican musical artist and one of the biggest superstars in the world, threw his support behind Harris on Sunday. Puerto Rican stars Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony have also expressed their support for the her candidacy.

The “garbage” comment at Sunday’s rally was just one of many offensive remarks in Trump’s opening acts. Hinchcliffe also made a lewd joke about how Latinos “love making babies,” referenced a racist stereotype while talking about a Black audience member — saying they “carved watermelons” together — and insulted both Jewish and Palestinian people. He joked that Palestinians would always choose “rock” in “rock paper scissors,” while Jewish people would have “a hard time throwing that paper” — an allusion to an antisemitic trope.

“Their closing argument last night was clear to the rest of the world. It’s about hate, it’s about division, it’s about dividing us,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, said during a Monday campaign stop in Wisconsin.

Inside Madison Square Garden on Sunday, former Fox host Tucker Carlson also mocked attention to Harris’s identity: “She’s just so impressive as the first Samoan, Malaysian, low-IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president,” Carlson said, misrepresenting her Jamaican-Indian heritage. And another speaker said Harris and “her pimp handlers will destroy our country.”

Some in the audience laughed at the comments. But others appeared uncomfortable at times.

Knowles reported from New York. Marianne LeVine and Azi Paybarah in Washington contributed to this report.