By james art 
With Election Day just under a week away, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) took the stage Monday at the Overture Theater in Madison to a packed audience.
During the rally in support of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, progressive lawmakers also took the opportunity to address racist jokes made by a comedian who described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of trash” and talked about black people carving watermelon at Donald Trump Rally in Madison Square Garden.
The remarks sparked outrage across the nation, with Puerto Rican celebrities and performers taking to social media to show their disgust.
Ocasio-Cortez said that as a “Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx” she found the remarks “horrifying.” Adding that the Trump campaign “knew exactly what they were doing.”
“They want us to think he’s not talking about me. He speaks of someother’,” she added. “It’s the same logic that says a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx has no business connecting with the community of Madison, Wisconsin.
“When we hear a person, whether it’s Donald Trump or one of his cronies on stage, talking about our countrymen like a pile of trash, know that he’s talking about us, he’s talking about you,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Madison and surrounding Dane County are Democratic strongholds, so this was a rally to generate even more buzz and action for Kamala Harris.
Throughout the night, and even during mic check, the phrase “every vote counts” in Wisconsin was repeated at various times.
In an effort to create some distance from the controversy over the racist joke, Daniel Alvarez, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, said in a statement that the Puerto Rico joke “does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
Bernie Sanders, who took the stage as Ocasio-Cortez left the podium to a standing ovation, focused his speech on uniting the people of the United States.
He began by criticizing Trump directly, calling him a “pathological liar.”
Sanders also emphasized protecting working-class people and expanding the social safety net.
One of the biggest cheers of the night came after Sanders said, “We need to cancel all the medical debt in America.”
He also addressed the situation in Gaza. Sanders highlighted his frustration with the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s military response after the Oct. 7 attacks, which killed 1,200 Israelis and led to 250 hostages being captured. He said he supported Israel’s right to defend itself, but condemned what he described as an “all-out war” against Palestinians in Gaza that has resulted in the deaths of 42,000 Palestinians and severe damage to Gaza’s infrastructure, health and education systems.
In a social media video posted the same day as the Madison rally, he tried to reassure progressive voters about what Harris’ policy approach would look like.
Sanders told rally attendees that he would work with Harris to secure the release of the hostages, get more humanitarian aid to Gaza and commit to rebuilding the Gaza Strip for the Palestinian people.
“I promise you, after Kamala wins, together we will do everything we can to change US policy toward Netanyahu,” Sanders said.
He detailed his confidence that Harris would be a much better fit for humanitarian priorities than Donald Trump.
Concluding his speech in Madison, he said, “We must bring our people together.”
Next for the Wisconsin campaigns, Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a rally in Madison on Wednesday night, while Donald Trump returns to the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, where he was formally nominated in July at the Republican National Convention, on Friday
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