No One Told Opening Act Tony Hinchcliffe That Trump Wants To Woo Latino Voters Not Alienate Them

Trump's Racist Rally At Madison Square Garden Turns To Shit

Long Island congressman upset that MAGA comedian wandered off message-- and insulted his mother

The 5 states with the biggest Latino populations are not in play in the presidential election— California (15,760,440), Texas (12,135,690), Florida (6,196,760), New York (3,872,140) and Illinois (2,378,190). But right after that comes Arizona (2,346,810), North Carolina (1,236,870), Georgia (1,222,580), Pennsylvania (1,151,760) and Nevada (956,400). It’s especially to keep in mind that the Hispanic population is over 10% in all but Pennsylvania and that it’s 31.6% in Arizona and 29.7% in Nevada. So… when this happened at Madison Square Garden yesterday, there were probably some people in the Trump campaign upset:

Something tells me Latino men don’t appreciate being the butt of racist jokes. And MAGA comedian Tony Hinchcliffe laid it on pretty thick, calling Puerto Rico a floating garbage dump and, earlier, saying “These Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that they do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They cum  inside, just like they did to our country.” After Florida and New York, Pennsylvania has the most Puerto Ricans in the U.S.

Florida Republicans Maria Salazar, Carlos Gimenez and Rick Scott quickly distanced themselves from Hinchcliffe, Scott saying “This joke bombed for a reason. It's not funny and it's not true. Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans! I’ve been to the island many times. It’s a beautiful place. Everyone should visit! I will always do whatever I can to help any Puerto Rican in Florida or on the island.” Mar-a-Lago has made a half-assed attempt to distance itslef from the racism but the jokes were loaded onto the teleprompter in advance, meaning they had already been approved by the campaign.

Right after Hinchcliffe’s “jokes,” Bad Bunny, Puerto Rico’s top musical superstar, endorsed Kamala and shared her video about Puerto Rico on his Instagram account, which has 45.6 million followers. Puerto Rican artists Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin also shared Harris’s video on their Instagram accounts, each expressing their support for her. The three artists alone have more than 314 million Instagram followers between them. This one:

“Bad Bunny’s support for Harris,” wrote Sabrina Rodriguez, “came as she held a rally in Philadelphia, which has a large Puerto Rican population. Earlier in the day, Harris made a stop at a Puerto Rican restaurant in north Philadelphia, where she outlined her plans for the island and was met with supporters chanting ‘¡Sí se puede!’ Both Harris and Trump have made efforts to appeal to Puerto Ricans and other Latinos, who have historically leaned toward Democrats but have appeared to shift a bit toward Trump in recent years. About two hours before Bad Bunny shared the Harris video for the first time, podcaster and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe disparaged Puerto Rico in remarks at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden... Democrats for months have hoped Bad Bunny would weigh in on the race given his huge influence with Latinos and young people. The belief has been that a Bad Bunny endorsement could give Harris a boost, particularly with young Latino men, who the campaign has struggled to mobilize. There were some doubts on whether he would weigh in on the presidential race, given that Puerto Ricans on the island cannot vote for president and he has long been focused on politics on the island.”

This morning, Melanie Zanona reported that many of the endangered local New York area candidates were in attendance, including Mike Lawler and Anthony D’Esposito. The day before, on a conference call of GOP fat cats hosted by Elise Stefanik, Trump made a pitch for fake “moderates” Mike Lawler, Nick LaLota, Marc Molinaro, Anthony D’Esposito and Brandon William— as well as for doomed challengers Mike LiPetri and Alison Esposito. 

[I]t’s a risky strategy to hug Trump so tightly. New York Republicans in tough races have spent their first terms in office trying to carefully cultivate a bipartisan brand outside of the GOP.

Meanwhile, Democrats have hit these vulnerable Republicans over their ties to Trump, arguing they’ll be rubber stamps for the MAGA agenda.

And Sunday night’s hugely controversial rally at MSG showed the ugly side of Trump’s base.

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made a bunch of racist jokes, while other speakers used crude and sexist rhetoric to refer to Trump’s political adversaries, including Vice President Kamala Harris.

Hinchcliffe said he “carved watermelons” with a Black audience member, called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and made extremely vulgar comments about Latinos “making babies.”

Several Republicans from Florida, which is home to a large Puerto Rican population, condemned the remarks. And so did D’Esposito, whose mother was born and raised in Puerto Rico.

Trump’s camp also put out a rare statement distancing the campaign from the remarks. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” said Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser.

Trump’s speech, which ran for more than an hour, was more-or-less the same one he’s been delivering on the trail. But it did catch our attention that Trump declined an opportunity to name-check the lawmakers— including New York Republicans— in attendance. “That’s a lot of introducing, right?” Trump said. “Let’s keep going.”

AOC: “When you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico ‘floating garbage,’ know that that’s what they think about you. It’s what they think about anyone who makes less money than them.” Hinchcliffe said she has no sense of humor.

After the thing had ended, Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman and Michael Gold described it as “a release of rage at a political and legal system that impeached, indicted and convicted him, a vivid and at times racist display of the dark energy animating the MAGA movement… By the time the former president himself took the stage, an event billed as delivering the closing message of his campaign, with nine days left in a tossup race, had instead become a carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism.”

The event was a spectacle that captured the unusual and sometimes ugly range of the MAGA movement that has taken over the Republican Party from the inside over the last nine years.

Hulk Hogan flexed his muscles and ripped off his clothes, just as he did at the convention. Donald Trump Jr. called his father a “badass.” The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who has poured $118 million of his fortune to aid Trump so far, entered to a video of his rocket booster landing, pumping his fists in the air. He promptly predicted the federal budget could be slashed by one-third even as rump rolled out deficit-expanding tax breaks.

Stephen Miller, a senior Trump adviser who influenced Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown, used nativist language as he argued that only Trump would stand up and say “America is for Americans and Americans only.”

…So many of the day’s warm-up speeches were spent portraying the former president as he wants to be seen. Several speakers talked about him surviving a July assassination attempt not in spiritual terms but in muscular ones, describing his toughness at “dodging” the bullet. Many also falsely claimed he “built” the skyline in a city in which he was always seen as a B-list developer with a small portfolio of buildings that he acquired long after they were constructed.

“The king of New York is back to reclaim the city that he built,” his son, Donald Trump Jr., declared anyway.

The elder Trump, who normally speaks only glowingly about his late father, Fred, from whom he inherited millions of dollars and the spine of his real-estate company, delivered a surprising line about his parents as he reflected on how they would be receiving word of his legal travails.

“I know my mother’s in heaven, I’m not 100 percent sure about my father, but it’s close,” Trump said, to laughter in the arena.

It was all a surreal scene.

…David Rem, a childhood friend of Trump, called Harris “the devil.” Grant Cardone, a businessman, declared that the sitting vice president had “pimp handlers.” Sid Rosenberg denounced Hillary Clinton as a “sick son of a bitch” for linking the Trump rally and a pro-Nazi event at the arena of the same name decades ago.

Rosenberg called the entire Democratic Party “a bunch of degenerates, lowlives, Jew-haters and lowlives. Every one of them.”

Hinchcliffe not crazy enough for you? How about this deranged sociopath?