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Trump Rally’s Racist Closing Message Attacks Millions of Americans as Unwelcome in His America 

by Gabe Ortiz on

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The Trump campaign’s racist and authoritarian rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, where speakers – vetted by the campaign – unleashed a torrent of rabidly xenophobic remarks, including an unhinged statement calling Puerto Rico, home to more than three million of our fellow Americans and an ancestral home to millions more in the mainland United States, a “floating island of garbage.” 

The Trump campaign’s choice to make a not-so-subtle ode to the infamous 1939 American Nazi rally held at the arena was not a mistake or an ‘oops’ in a decisive period for the message of the campaign. The symbolic messages embedded in the locations where presidential campaigns choose to hold events is often just as important as the text on the teleprompter. But as on-brand as ever, Trump and his allies’ garish rhetoric sought to drive home their 21st-century American fascism message with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer for anyone not desperate for an excuse to deny the reality in front of their face. The rally was a choice. The vile, dehumanizing bigotry was the point.   

“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” speaker Tony Hinchcliffe “joked” to the audience. The Los Angeles Times reported that other remarks from Hinchcliffe “included lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people,” including remarks that Latinos “love making babies” a reference to the white nationalist replacement theory, and that he “carved watermelons” with a Black rally goer, invoking a tired racist trope.

“While Puerto Ricans cannot vote in general elections despite being U.S. citizens, they can exert a powerful influence with relatives on the mainland. Phones across the island of 3.2 million people were ringing minutes after the speaker derided the U.S. territory Sunday night,” The LA Times continued. These condemnations have continued. Members of Congress, Latino-led organizations, Latino faith voices, Puerto Rican military veterans, and prominent Puerto Rican voices have issued blistering rebukes of the rally.

One of the biggest voices to immediately condemn the remarks was Ricky Martin, who also endorsed Vice President Harris in his post. “This is what they think of us,” he wrote in Spanish at Instagram, where he has more than 18 million followers. Bad Bunny had reportedly been in talks with the Harris campaign, “hoping to have him lend his support to the vice president’s plan for Puerto Rico,” CNN reported. Immediately following Hinchcliffe’s insults, Bad Bunny posted a clip of the plan to his 45 million followers on Instagram. He followed up with a post on Tuesday, writing that “we are the definition of heart and resistance … For those who forget who we are … don’t worry, we will proudly remind them.”

 

Marc Anthony’s anger was palpable in a video posted to his 13 million Instagram followers on Monday, where he reminded viewers of Trump’s inaction on Hurricane Maria – which ultimately took 4,000 lives – and Trump’s threats against American families should he return to the White House in January 2025.

“I’m here to tell you that even though some have forgotten … I remember,” he wrote. “I remember what it was like when Trump was president. I remember what he did and said, about Puerto Rico… About our people … I remember after Hurricane Maria devastated our island… Trump blocked billions in relief … while thousands died. But I was not surprised..

Because I ALSO remember… he launched his campaign by calling Latinos criminals and rapists. He’s told us what he’ll do. He’ll separate children from their families and threatened to use the ARMY to do it. This election goes way beyond political parties.”

“This Puerto Rican has something to say about the island that I love, where my family is from,” said The View cohost Sunny Hostin. “Puerto Rico is trash? We are Americans, Donald Trump. Americans. We voluntarily serve disproportionately high in the military, while you have bone spurs. And we vote.” 

Puerto Rican service members in fact enroll at twice the rate of mainland residents, Cesar Ramirez, chair of the Polk County (Florida) Democratic Party, tells Florida’s The Ledger. “Ramirez, who was born in New York, said he took special offense because his grandfather and father, both born in Puerto Rico, served in the U.S. Armed Forces. He said his father volunteered for the U.S. Army and fought in Vietnam, where he was exposed to Agent Orange and decades later died of cancer.” In a 2016 report, the Department of Defense said that Puerto Ricans “have participated in every major United States military engagement from World War I onward.” More than 1,225 Puerto Ricans have made the ultimate sacrifice in service of their nation.

“Our feelings are hurt because we’ve had this term for a long time, ‘second-class citizens,’ that we never really want to say that out loud, and it was said in Madison Square Garden,” Ramirez said.

Hinchcliff reportedly planned to go even further in his remarks and call Vice President Harris a misogynistic slur, but was apparently blocked by the campaign. To say it another way, the Trump campaign approved all his other racist and antisemitic comments.

Hinchcliff’s simplistic repurposing of decades-old racist slurs wasn’t just lazy writing of a talentless comedian or just cheap figleaf to hide the ugly racism the Trump campaign thought its own base would enjoy. It was most assuredly both, but it was also the perfect choice to start the Trump rally as Hinchcliff’s simplistic ‘I was telling jokes’ excuse was so thin that his outline of who is a “real” American in the eyes of the MAGA movement was laid bare. 

More troubling is the fact that there was a litany of people with positions of real power who followed the racist comedian with bigoted conspiracy theories, lies, and political programs that painted a vision for America that doesn’t take Hinchcliff as a joke.   

Drawing comparisons to the 1939 American Nazi rally held at the arena, Trump and speakers doubled down on the antisemitic and white nationalist replacement theory that has been a central animating force of the Trump campaign, with Trump continuing to echo the rhetoric of racist mass murderers by framing non-white migrants as a threat.

“Trump spoke repeatedly about his plans to halt illegal immigration and deport migrants he described as ‘vicious and bloodthirsty criminals’ if he wins the Nov. 5 election,” Reuters reported. “‘On day one I will launch the largest deportation program in American history,’ he said. ‘I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered.’” Both Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson made explicit replacement theory appeals at the rally, while noted white nationalist Stephen Miller employed the slogan “America for Americans,” long associated with American fascism. “Miller reacts angrily to those who compare this to 1930s Nazi ultranationalist rhetoric,” Greg Sargent wrote at The New Republic. “But even if that precise parallel is unfair, Miller absolutely is echoing the reactionary rhetoric of the 1920s and 1930s in America.”

Prominent voices within the Democratic Party have made the comparisons as well, including former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who ahead of the event said Trump was “actually re-enacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939.” 2024 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz said that there’s “a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden … And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.”

Following the Puerto Rico remarks, Religion News Service reporter Jack Johnson noted that Puerto Rican Archbishop Roberto O. González Nieves of San Juan issued a letter “demanding Trump personally apologize—not just his campaign. Says the remarks ‘should not be a part of the political discourse of a civilized society.’ It’s a big deal.”

“Puerto Rico is not a floating island of garbage,” the archbishop’s letter read. “Puerto Rico is a beautiful country inhabited by a beautiful and noble people, which is why in Spanish it is called ‘un encanto, un edén’ … More Puerto Rican soldiers died in the Vietnam War as part of the United States military than soldiers from any state of the United States.”

The Trump campaign has tried to disavow Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico slur (while not disavowing his other racist remarks) despite the fact that the “remarks were pre-loaded into a teleprompter, indicating that they would likely have been vetted by the campaign in advance,” the Daily Beast said. Trump is also now claiming that he doesn’t know Hinchcliffe. “Trump also insisted he didn’t hear any of the comments, even as they’ve been played on television and written about extensively. When asked what he made of them, he did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn’t hear the comments,” ABC News reported. The sort of response of a child sticking his fingers in his ears yelling “la la la I’m not listening” and not the kind of attention to detail and accountability of leadership one might think is quality desirable in a presidential candidate. But as ever, Trump is right on brand. 

The Trump campaign is “trying to blame this rhetoric about Puerto Rico on a so-called comedian,” said New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican descent. “This is not a comedian. This is the Trump campaign. They invited this rhetoric on their stage for a reason. It was a chorus of speakers on that campaign for a reason. It was vetted. They knew exactly who was going to say what before they went on.” 

In a statement, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Rep. Nanette Barragán said the attack “emboldens prejudice, encourages violence, and undermines the values of unity and respect that our country is built on. It’s deeply troubling to see Republican leaders celebrate this rhetoric instead of promoting unity and truth.”

“Puerto Ricans have made invaluable contributions to this country, serving in our military, leading in government, and excelling in sports, the arts, and sciences,” Rep. Barragán continued. “From distinguished public servants who sit on the Supreme Court to renowned athletes and artists who have inspired millions, the Puerto Rican community continues to shape and elevate America.”

And on Tuesday, Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper, El Nuevo Día, published a stirring editorial urging eligible voters to rebuke Trump. And the blowback will likely not be dying down in these final days heading into Election Day, with Jennifer Lopez set to appear at a Las Vegas rally with Harris.

In a statement Sunday evening, America’s Voice joined our partners Voto Latino, UnidosUS Action Fund, Latino Victory Fund, Mi Familia Vota, and Hispanic Federation to condemn the hate rally, with our Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas saying that the event “echoes a level of vitriol and racism we all had hoped we’d left behind us during the last century, only to see it rear its ugly head again during this campaign.”

“Trump and his surrogates are not hiding it anymore—they don’t want Latinos in this country, they don’t respect Latinos, and they don’t see Latinos as human beings,” said Sindy M. Benavides, President & CEO of Latino Victory Fund. “Hearing anti-Latino and anti-Puerto Rican comments coming out of Trump’s rally just days before the election means he doesn’t respect us as voters, and the disrespect will get far worse if he wins. The dehumanizing and dangerous comments coming out of Trump’s rally today will be the basis of his policies if he becomes president.”

Benavides, is right, but what the rally at the Garden made clear, unless you’re the type of person who can laugh at Hinchcliff’s racist jokes, nodding along underneath an ugly red hat to bigoted conspiracy theories that blame your neighbors for all your problems, Republicans don’t think you’re a “real American” and are eager to tell you to get the hell out.