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    • Trump makes no apologies for Latin American leanings during Mar-a-Lago speech
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    Trump makes no apologies for Latin American leanings during Mar-a-Lago speech

    Online Niel Posted on

    On Tuesday, a week before Election Day, the 2024 GOP presidential nominee spoke from his Mar-a-Lago resort and residence.

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    PALM BEACH — It looks like the long-awaited October surprise has happened Donald Trump were vulgar jokes about Latinos, Puerto Ricans and others made by comedians and speakers at a Make America Great Again rally in Manhattan on Sunday.

    The comments at the packed Madison Square Garden event sparked a firestorm of outrage, as well as denunciations and disapproval even from Republicans in Trump’s home state and beyond. But on Tuesday, a week before Election Day, Trump spoke at his Mar-a-Lago club and shrugged off the controversy.

    In his nearly hour-long remarks, the 2024 GOP presidential nominee meandered through the talking points that are staples of his rally and stump speeches, from border security to Afghanistan withdrawal to the economy. He even tried to turn the tables on his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, saying the Democratic nominee is running a “campaign of hate, absolute hate.”

    It wasn’t until his closing comments, more than 50 minutes into the event, that he brought up the rally in New York, saying he couldn’t believe “the love in that room.”

    “I don’t think anyone has ever seen anything like what happened last night at Madison Square Garden,” he said to cheers. He made no reference to the offensive comments made by some of the speakers that evening. “Politicians who have been doing this for a long time, 30, 40 years, said there has never been such a beautiful event. It was like a love festival.”

    Trump did not take questions from media invited to Mar-a-Lago for the address. The ballroom where the speech took place included several hundred people in attendance, including Mar-a-Lago members, campaign supporters and local GOP officials and candidates. Host of FOX News Sean Hannity who owns property in Palm Beach, campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski and Trump lawyer Alina Haba were among those seen in attendance.

    The speech came two days after some speakers at the New York rally risked undermining the former president’s sensitivity and potential gains with Hispanic voters, who make up about 15 percent of the national electorate.

    The offensive comments gave the Harris-Walz ticket and Trump’s home state Democrats an opening they immediately saw as a potential game changer in a presidential contest that polls have shown is close to historic.

    The controversy also distracted from the main objective of Sunday night’s rally – to begin Trump’s closing argument to American voters, highlighting his plans to reduce inflation and secure the border.

    What other offensive comments did the comedian make at Trump’s MAGA rally in Manhattan?

    At the Madison Square Garden rally hosted by Trump and his campaign on Sunday, October 27, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe said that “there is literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

    Hinchcliffe, who hosts the comedy podcast Kill Tony, also played on sexual tropes about Hispanics with a profane commentary.

    “It’s wild and these Latinos like to make babies too, just know this — they don’t do that,” he said. “They come in, just like in our country.”

    Latin comments were only part of the evening’s repertoire. Other comments included a racist trope about black Americans and watermelons and an anti-Semitic remark about Jews not spending money.

    Another speaker, businessman Grant Cardone, made a crude comment about Harris, saying she and her “pimps” will ruin the country.

    Offensive comments instantly swirled through social media. Just as quickly, Puerto Rican music megastars Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez announced on their social media accounts — of which they have millions of followers — that they were endorsing Harris’ campaign.

    Florida Republican U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, as well as GOP Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar of Miami denounced the pranks. Scott and Salazar are in re-election races.

    Even the Archbishop of San Juan de Puerto Rico, in an open letter to Trumpasked him to apologize, according to The Hill.

    Democrats: The jokes spoke volumes about MAGA’s attitude toward Latinos

    During a call Monday morning, Rolando Barrero of the Florida Democratic Hispanic Caucus called the remarks “disgusting” lightheartedness by Puerto Ricans on the island and the US mainland.

    “This language is not only derogatory,” he said, “it is dehumanizing and totally unacceptable to anyone who aspires to lead our country.”

    Barrero noted that Puerto Rico is a US territory and its residents are US citizens by birth. He also accused the Trump campaign of knowingly allowing Hinchcliffe’s comments.

    “These are American citizens he’s talking about,” Barrero said. “All those jokes were premeditated. They were analyzed. They were vetted and they were presented on purpose, and that’s disgusting.”

    Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democratic candidate seeking to unseat Scott, said the comments were part of the ugly rhetoric Trump has used against immigrants who have entered the US through the southern border with Mexico.

    More: Trump will hold an election night party at the Palm Beach County Convention Center

    More: Forgot the polls? Prediction Fever Takes Over Trump Vs. Harris from 2024

    More: West Palm Beach man charged with racist threats, voter intimidation at Loxahatchee polling place

    Mucarsel-Powell said the toxic statements would be followed by what she called xenophobic policies if Trump were to win back the White House. The former Democratic congresswoman from the Miami area recalled the 2018 family separation policy that the Trump administration implemented at the border.

    “I saw firsthand thousands of children who were not only separated, but detained and not reunited with their families,” she said. “That’s exactly the kind of policy they’re going to implement again.”

    U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, a Democrat from Orlando, called on Puerto Rican voters to punish Trump and his allies for past and present wrongdoings, from the comic’s “despicable” jokes to his paper towel-throwing Trump in 2017, after Hurricane Maria devastated the Caribbean island.

    Soto noted that there are 1.2 million Puerto Ricans in Florida, 500,000 in the swing state of Pennsylvania and 50,000 in Georgia and North Carolina.

    “We have eight days for our community to respond by voting, voting, voting,” Soto said. “That’s the only way.”

    Trump is scheduled to speak at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday night. Even the mayor of that city called out Trump.

    “I couldn’t believe what I heard from that Trump rally. Seeing this kind of hatred on full display not only angered me, but deepened my resolve to do everything I can to make sure he never sits in the Oval Office again,” said Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk. More than half of The residents of Allentown are Latin Americanand many are of Puerto Rican descent. Tuerk, a Cuban-born Democrat, is the city’s first Latino mayor.

    Will jokes cancel Trump and MAGA’s inroads into the Latino electorate?

    The Madison Square Garden debacle threatens to undo the significant and potentially decisive inroads Trump has made in the Latino electorate, especially younger men.

    In 2020, President Joe Biden won about 59% of the Latino vote. But recent polls show Trump closing the gap.

    A New York Times/Sienna College poll of voters released earlier this month showed Harris with just 52 percent support among the nation’s 36 million Hispanic voters and Trump at 40 percent. A poll released Oct. 24 by Florida International University also found that Trump captured 68 percent of Cuban-American voters.

    One entry point for Trump has been among young Latino men, and one conduit has been their shared passion for mixed martial arts prizefighting, of which Trump is an ardent fan who has won the support of the sport’s Hispanic stars.

    Tito Ortiz, a Mexican-born former Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter who is now a Southern California businessman, said Trump had “exposed what’s really going on and what’s going on in this country” and why Democrats it does not offer Hispanics in America a true path to the American Dream.

    “In the Latino values ​​that we have, it’s faith and family freedom,” Ortiz said during a premiere of the film at Mar-a-Lago on Oct. 23. “We come here for freedom. We love our family and we love God and ourselves. faith.”

    Ortiz said he comes from a Democratic family but has fully supported Trump since 2016.

    “I agree,” said the former heavyweight mixed martial arts champion. “Being a Latino kid myself, coming from nothing, coming from the Democratic Party, coming from the kid that came from government cheese, government milk powder, to make the American dream possible for me, talking about the truth.”

    Trump bounced from one topic to another during the discussion at Mar-a-Lago

    What exactly Trump hoped to accomplish with his event in Palm Beach on Tuesday was unclear.

    The former president did not give a focused or coherent presentation. Instead, he jumped from topic to topic in an apparent stream of consciousness — Trump calls it “fabric,” critics call it rambling — without offering detailed explanations or policy prescriptions.

    He did not criticize the offensive comments at the rally, nor did he disavow or distance himself from them.

    Trump said he would seek to create a fund to provide restitution to victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants that the government would finance by seizing the assets of drug dealers. But he did not explain how this would be achieved.

    He introduced Alexis Nungaray, the mother of a 12-year-old girl who police in Texas say was killed this summer by two Venezuelan nationals U.S. authorities say entered the country illegally.

    “Homeland Security didn’t do their job, Health and Human Services didn’t do their job. The Biden-Harris administration didn’t do their job,” Nungaray said. “If he had done his job, he would have made one phone call to El Salvador, and my daughter would still be alive today.”

    Trump then said more than 300,000 children were unaccounted for across the country, many potentially dead or abused as sex slaves, he claimed, but did not elaborate or explain what he meant.

    Inexplicably, after dropping that bombshell, and without details, he handed the microphone to the owner of a chain of West Palm Beach dry cleaners. The businessman spoke about the difficulties he faces in trying to expand his enterprise in the current economy.

    Trump then moved on to tariffs, mentioned the “China virus,” his term for the coronavirus pandemic, how a Taliban leader threatened to refrain from attacking U.S. troops, cut Social Security taxes, fire 9,000 Administration employees Veterans he considered “sadists”. and careless athletes, transgender and other issues.

    He said a second term in the White House would put the country on the path to peace and prosperity.

    “We’re going to take our country back,” he said.

    Antonio Fins is the politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Postpart of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can contact him at [email protected]. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

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