Trump makes case to Puerto Rican voters in Allentown, Pennsylvania, after joke backlash

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 30, 2024 / 09:40 am

Former president Donald Trump expressed his admiration for Puerto Rico and urged Puerto Ricans and other Latino Americans to support his candidacy at a campaign rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, after facing backlash for jokes made by a comedian at a previous rally.

“I will deliver the best future for Puerto Ricans and for Hispanic Americans,” Trump said at the Tuesday night rally. “[Vice President] Kamala [Harris] will deliver you poverty and crime.”

“I’m so proud that we’re getting support from Latinos like never before,” he said. “We’re setting every record [with] Hispanics, Latinos. Nobody loves our Latino community and our Puerto Rican community more than I do.”

At the rally, Trump also received an endorsement from Republican Puerto Rico Shadow Sen. Zoraida Buxó — whom Trump called “terrific” and “a wonderful woman.”

“We Hispanics are part of the soul of this country,” Buxó said. “We have made a difference, and we will again make a difference in this coming election to bring about much-needed change.”

Buxó warned that “it is easy to get distracted or misled by propaganda, emotional manipulation, and distortion of the truth and facts” but urged voters to “watch out and stay focused on what is truly important when you go to cast your vote.”

“We need change and Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are not the option to bring about the kind of change that you need and want,” Buxó emphasized.

More than half of Allentown is Latino and the majority of Latinos in the city are Puerto Rican.

Trump’s praise for Puerto Rico and Buxó’s endorsement came just two days after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made a joke about Puerto Rico at the beginning of a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The joke, which mocked the U.S. Caribbean territory, offended Puerto Ricans and prompted backlash against the former president.

“I don’t know if you guys know this,” Hinchcliffe said at the Sunday rally. “But there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.”

“Yeah — I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” he added.

The Trump campaign immediately distanced itself from the joke, saying it does not represent the views of the president. Trump told ABC that he did not see Hinchcliffe’s remarks and did not know him.

Prior to the Tuesday rally, Archbishop Roberto González of San Juan, Puerto Rico, sent an open letter to Trump, asking that he personally apologize to Puerto Ricans for Hinchcliffe’s joke.

Trump did not issue an apology or even address the joke at the rally but did briefly discuss it in an interview on Fox News with Sean Hannity that aired Tuesday night. The former president said: “I have no idea who he is, never saw him, never heard of him, and don’t want to hear of him.” 

“They put a comedian in, which everybody does,” Trump added. “You throw comedians in, you don’t vet them and go crazy. It’s nobody’s fault. But somebody said some bad things. Now, what they’ve done is taken somebody that has nothing to do with the party, has nothing to do with us [who] said something and they try and make a big deal … and I can’t imagine it’s a big deal. I’ve done more for Puerto Rico than any president I think that’s ever been president.”

At the rally, Trump said Puerto Rican and other Latino Americans are “incredible people — energetic, smart, great entrepreneurial people.”

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“We have a lot of them here tonight,” he said, and thanked Latino supporters of his candidacy.

“I’ve done more for Puerto Rico than any president by far — nobody close,” Trump said. “I provided historic funding and the hospital ship when they were hit with a couple of really bad [hurricanes] right in a row. And we got the ship over there with thousands of rooms actually. It was amazing: a floating hospital, the biggest in the world.”

Trump signed a disaster relief package in early 2018 to provide Puerto Rico with $16 billion in funding. Congress later allocated additional funds to Puerto Rico — but Trump faced criticism for delays in Puerto Rico receiving the funds and the strings attached to the money.

Tim Ramos, a former Republican candidate for mayor of Allentown, also expressed his support for Trump at the Tuesday rally and spoke about his Puerto Rican heritage.

“We have a proud heritage — a heritage that has seen our men fight in every war this nation has ever waged,” he said. “We are a beautiful people from a beautiful island.”

“We need a leader who understands that and sees that in us,” Ramos added. “Donald Trump is that leader.”

Harris and other Democrats have been critical of Trump following Hinchcliffe’s joke. The vice president even created an advertisement that plays Hinchcliffe saying the joke, which is followed by her criticizing Trump’s response to the hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico in 2017.

“I will never forget what Donald Trump did,” Harris says in the advertisement. “He abandoned the island and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults. Puerto Ricans deserve better. As president, I will always fight for you and your families and together, we can chart a new way forward.”

Polls show that Harris is leading Trump with Latino voters, but the polls also show her with less support from Latinos than other Democratic presidential candidates in recent elections.