As counterprotesters picketed outside, loyalists of Donald Trump gathered inside Madison Square Garden for an hours-long rally on Sunday that saw one speaker after another praise the former president and denigrate his opponents, often with racist or dehumanizing terms.
Trump used the iconic venue to deliver his closing argument against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris as the clock ticked down toward the Nov. 5 general election. While Trump has insisted New York state is in play this year, recent polls have him trailing Harris by nearly 20 points, and the Empire State has not gone for a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Trump’s campaign said the event at the 19,500-seat arena, which can cost upwards of $1 million to rent, was sold out. Tickets were free and available on a first-come-first-served basis.
Trump’s 2016 presidential opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, has accused him of “re-enacting” a pro-Nazi “America First” rally that was held at Madison Square Garden in 1939 on the eve of World War II. Trump’s critics have long accused him of empowering white supremacists through his dehumanizing and racist rhetoric.
Her comments drew a rebuke from Trump and Republican leaders.
“She said it’s just like the 1930s. No, it’s not,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan on Friday. “This is called Make America Great Again, that’s all this is.”
Nevertheless, the parade of speakers who took the microphone ahead of Trump on Sunday delivered speeches dripping in offensive rhetoric and hateful terms — perhaps none more so than podcast host and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage” — a line that drew some groans from the crowd — and crudely claimed Latinos “enjoy making babies.”
“There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They c– inside, just like they did to our country,” Hinchcliffe told the crowd, which garnered more laughter.
That drew the ire of the League of United Latin American Citizens, which demanded an apology from the Trump campaign over Hinchcliffe’s remarks.
“We are shocked but not surprised that the Trump campaign in New York today has stooped to allow a speaker to call the island of Puerto Rico ‘floating garbage,'” said Roman Palomares, LULAC National President. “LULAC does not care how they spin it; these words spewed by a so-called comedian should have never been allowed and should have been immediately rejected and condemned by Donald Trump.”
Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, urged Latinos voting in the election “make it clear that these remarks are as unacceptable as the candidate who gave it a national platform today.”
“Millions of Puerto Ricans in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and New York may no longer live on the island, but they still revere it as their ancestral and cultural home, and you cannot continue to disrespect us and think that we are not going to remember that when we go to the ballot box,” Miranda said.
More than 1.1 million people of Puerto Rican descent live in New York. US Rep. Ritchie Torres sought to speak on their behalf Sunday night, urging all to “ignore the haters heaping scorn on Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s rally.”
House Minority Leader and Brooklyn US Rep. Hakeem Jeffries sought to tie Hinchcliffe’s remarks to Republican House members in the city suburbs who are up for re-election. Their fate could determine which party controls the House in January.
“Desperate House Republicans from Long Island and the Hudson Valley shamefully invited this filth into our community,” Jeffries posted on X (formerly Twitter). “Vote them all out.”
Following the backlash, Hinchcliffe took to X (formerly Twitter) to claim that he was only kidding and that his remarks were a joke “taken out of context.”
But Hinchcliffe was only one of several speakers Sunday at the Trump rally who were comfortable using offensive language about their fellow Americans, often receiving rapturous applause from the crowd.
It came days after Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called for a lowering of the rhetoric, especially after Trump has been called a fascist by Harris and other Democrats. (Johnson also spoke at Sunday’s MSG rally.)
Former Trump aide Stephen Miller: “The criminal migrants are gone. The gangs are gone. America is for Americans, and Americans only.”
Former Fox News broadcaster Tucker Carlson: “In a country that has been taken over by a leadership class that actually despites them and their values and their history, and really hates them… to the point where they’re trying to replace them.” He went on to mock Harris as “the first Samoan, Malaysian, low-IQ, former California prosecutor” while attempting to preemptively question the legitimacy of a potential Harris victory over Trump. (Harris is the first Black and south Asian female vice president in US history.)
Radio host Sid Rosenberg: “She is some sick bastard, that Hillary Clinton. The whole f***ing party, a bunch of degenerates — lowlifes and Jew-haters, every one of them.” He also called Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband, “a crappy Jew.”
David Rem, a friend of Trump (upon hearing epithets shouted by an audience member): “She is the devil, whoever screamed that out. She is the anti-Christ.”
Other speakers at Trump’s Sunday event include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former independent presidential candidate who dropped out of the race and backed Trump; billionaire Elon Musk; and Howard Lutnick, who is chair and CEO of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
