By james art
CNN
—
Violent and vulgar rhetoric at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday sparked finger-pointing in the former president’s inner circle and deep concern that his message was once again clouded by controversy.
Several of Trump’s allies expressed frustration with the language used by speakers at the New York event, particularly a nasty joke about Puerto Rico by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who opened the event and set the tone for an evening of dismissive and divisive remarks.
“I’m furious,” said a source close to the former president, noting they were amazed the remarks weren’t vetted before the speakers took the stage.
Throughout Sunday afternoon and evening, a parade of speakers fired up the crowd at Trump’s MAGA campaign celebration, adopting the Republican candidate’s take-it-all tone. Some made racist remarks about Latinos and black Americans; others launched misogynistic attacks on Trump’s female political opponents, past and present.
Many of these remarks appear to have been read by teleprompters, indicating that they were approved by someone on the event planning team. A campaign adviser told CNN that the speeches should have been vetted beforehand, and he’s not sure how the overtly racist language made it onto the stage. Another senior adviser said the remarks had been vetted, but insisted the more offensive remarks were bespoke and not on a draft given to the campaign.
By Monday, there was still controversy within the campaign over who had approved Hinchcliffe’s kit, which was full of racial tropes. One adviser suggested that no one had fully reviewed Hinchcliffe’s remarks. Another said the campaign didn’t receive a draft that included some of the comedian’s more raunchy jokes, but flagged one calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “s*nt” as “in bad taste” and removed it from the set.
The program was a sharp departure from the meticulous staging of this summer’s Republican National Convention, where every speech was carefully researched and tightly choreographed. During the convention, campaign advisers routinely edited and in some cases rewrote the remarks of invited speakers with minimal room for improvisation. Campaign aides acknowledged to CNN that the level of preparation exercised at the convention in Milwaukee was not applied to Sunday’s rally.
Since the RNC in July, a period marked by a remarkable series of events — including Harris replacing President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket — Trump’s advisers have struggled to keep him focused, and his public appearances have become increasingly erratic if he strays even more than the message. Some allies have at times publicly questioned whether the former president was using the right tone to win over the voters needed to carry the election in the battleground states.
Sunday began with Republicans optimistic that the Trump campaign is at least striking the right tone with a new ad that looks ahead to the prospect of a second Trump presidency.
“President Trump is fighting for you. His power protected us. Trump cut taxes for families. The prices were lower and the border secure. Now President Trump can do it again, and we’re headed for a new golden age of American success for citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed,” said a narrator.
Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist and CNN political commentator, praised the ad as a “perfect closing argument” from the Trump campaign. But by 8 p.m., any hopes that Trump would build on that message at Madison Square Garden had evaporated.
Still, tonight’s offensive comments weren’t entirely out of place in the context of a Trump rally, where the use of crude slogans, explicit Kid Rock anthems and offensive nicknames for political opponents is the norm. Many of his supporters express themselves through crude messages on T-shirts. Trump himself often adopts nativist language and increasingly uses profanity in his speeches.
For nearly a decade, Trump has endured — if not thrived — the lack of a filter to define his political brand, leaving Democrats with no clear path to use in the latter part of the race. In a similar vein, Future Forward, the leading super PAC backing Harris’ presidential campaign, recently warned that Democrats risk undermining their ultimate message by spending time labeling Trump a fascist.
Still, the timing of Sunday’s event — so close to Election Day and against a backdrop of high-profile New York — prompted a new wave of concern from Republicans.
The controversy largely centered around Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico, which he called a “floating island of trash.” A handful of Republicans, some closely associated with Trump, issued statements condemning the remarks. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the state with the largest Puerto Rican population, described the comments as “neither funny nor true.” Rep. Byron Donalds, also of Florida, said, “Nobody agreed with that.”
Allies expressed concern that the remarks could have political ramifications, especially given the growing influence of Puerto Ricans in the battleground states, with about half a million living in Pennsylvania alone. Sources close to the former president confirmed that a number of calls had been made to campaign officials stressing the need to address the remarks.
Congressman Anthony D’Esposito, a New York Republican and Puerto Rican who faces one of the toughest re-election battles in the country, wrote to X, “The only thing ‘trash’ was bad comedy.”
“Stay on the message,” D’Esposito advised.
The Trump campaign, generally unapologetic about inflammatory remarks, quickly released a statement Sunday night distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s remarks.
“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” campaign spokesman Daniel Alvarez said.
Trump’s distancing from Hinchcliffe did not extend to the comedian’s other inflammatory remarks — including a stereotype about blacks and watermelons and a crude claim about the sex lives of Latino immigrants. The campaign also did not acknowledge other speakers who have drawn condemnation, such as one who called Harris the “devil” and the “antichrist.”
As of Monday, there were no plans for Trump to address the comments during his upcoming appearances. The former president held an event Monday in Georgia and traveled to Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Democrats were quick to seize on Sunday’s outwardly offensive display. After the rally, Puerto Rican music superstar Bad Bunny signaled her support for Harris to her 45 million social media followers, which her campaign quickly promoted.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, called Trump’s event at Madison Square Garden a “rally of hate” and suggested the campaign was in damage control mode over Hinchcliffe’s comments.
“They’re just realizing that they may have made a big mistake by saying what they thought,” she told MSNBC on Monday.
It remains to be seen, however, whether Trump will suffer the election consequences of his disparaging remarks about Puerto Rico. Trump himself once called the territory “one of the most corrupt places on earth.” He accused local officials there of inflating the death toll from Hurricane Maria — estimated at 3,000 — to make him look bad.
In 2020, Democrats tried to mobilize Puerto Ricans on some battlegrounds by attacking Trump’s handling of Maria’s response. Spanish-language ads and billboards in Florida depicted Trump throwing paper towels to survivors who had lost their homes and highlighted his previous criticism of the island. In Osceola County, where the population surged after Maria and one in three voters identified as Puerto Rican, Democrats enlisted storm survivors to reach out to other Puerto Ricans against Trump.
Trump ended up winning Florida, and in Osceola County his performance improved by 7 points.