Former President Donald Trump was returning to a majority-Hispanic town in eastern Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening after a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally over the weekend sparked controversy by making racist jokes on Latinos, including calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” “.
Trump’s rally is expected to take place in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a city of more than 125,000 where the Hispanic population makes up 55% of its total population, according to U.S. Census data, a large portion of which is Puerto Rican.
Among the scheduled speakers at the Allentown rally is Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, whom Trump enlisted to court Latino voters across the country.
His second campaign stop of the day in Pennsylvania, after a round table at Drexel Hill, where the population is predominantly white – the Allentown visit is an opportunity for the former president to court Hispanics and more particularly Puerto Ricans after Hispanic groups on both sides of the border. Aisle called the racist jokes made at the New York rally “derogatory,” “offensive” and “disrespectful.”
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate, participates in a moderated question-and-answer session with Pastor Paula White during the National Faith Advisory Summit, in Powder Springs, Georgia, October 28, 2024.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
The comments in question were made by controversial comedian Tony Hinchcliffe during pre-programming earlier Sunday afternoon, including explicit comments about how Latinos “love making babies.”
“I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island full of trash in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe said on stage in front nearly 20,000 people on Sunday evening. after the former president himself had described the United States as “trash for the world” the day before.
Hinchcliffe, instead of apologizing for his comments, attacked his critics for lacking a sense of humor and accused them of taking the joke out of context to “make it seem racist.”
The former president denied knowing the comedian on Tuesday, telling ABC News senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott: “I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is .”
Trump also insisted he had not heard any of the comments, even though they were broadcast on television and written about extensively. When asked what he thought about them, he did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he had not heard the comments.
Trump’s campaign also tried to distance itself from comedian Hinchcliffe’s comments, saying they did not reflect his views.
Several Republicans spoke out against the jokes, including Puerto Rico Republican Party Chairman Angel Cintrón, who censored Hinchcliffe’s comments as “unfortunate, ignorant and entirely reprehensible” as well as “racist.”
Tony Hinchcliffe speaks to former President Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate, during a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on October 27, 2024, in New York.
Evan Vucci/AP
Puerto Rico, as a U.S. territory, does not vote for president in general elections, but the Puerto Rico Republican Party held a primary in April as part of the Republican presidential nomination process. Donald Trump won the primary and attracted the territory’s delegates.
Puerto Ricans living in the United States, however, make up the largest Hispanic group in seven states across the country, including the critical state of Pennsylvania, according to U.S. Census data.
In Pennsylvania, where President Joe Biden won in 2020 by just over 81,000 votes, 3.7% of the state’s total population, or about 486,000 people, were of Puerto Rican descent. Pennsylvania is once again expected to be an extremely close race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, with Trump leading Harris by just 0.2% based on the polling average of 538 as of October 29.
Overall, Pennsylvania’s eligible Latino voting population has more than doubled since 2000, from 206,000 to 620,000 in 2023, according to WNTM analysis figures from the US Census Bureau.
