Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally overshadowed by his allies’ crude and racist remarks

Former President Donald Trump delivered his standard lines on topics from immigration to the economy Sunday at a packed rally at Madison Square Garden, an event that was designed to be the start of his closing argument nine days out from Election Day at a venue off the battleground map that he has wanted to campaign at for years. 

But Trump’s remarks in his hometown, New York City, which went for more than an hour, were overshadowed by comments made by warm-up speakers in the roughly five hours before his prime-time address. They included a comedian's racist jokes about Latinos and Black Americans and were condemned by multiple Republican members of Congress, as well as speakers who used increasingly inflammatory language to describe Vice President Kamala Harris.

At the World’s Most Famous Arena and before one of his largest rally crowds of the cycle, Trump railed against opponents he sees as “the enemy from within,” described the media as “the enemy of the people,” referred to Harris’ “low IQ” and described her as a “vessel” for those aforementioned opponents, and said in a potential war with China the U.S. “would kick their ass.”

“It’s just this amorphous group of people, but they’re smart and they’re vicious, and we have to defeat them,” Trump said in explaining his use of “the enemy from within.”

“And when I say the enemy from within, the other side goes crazy. … They’ve done very bad things to this country. They are indeed the enemy from within. But this is who we’re fighting,” he continued.

It was the lesser-known speakers before Trump took the stage, however, who made big waves outside the arena. 

Grant Cardone, a conservative influencer and investor, said Harris and “her pimp handlers will destroy our country” and raised his middle finger to the camera to show what message a Trump victory would send to “the elites.”

“It needs to be a landslide,” he said. “We need to slaughter these other people. We need to bring 100 million votes to Donald Trump.”

David Rem, who announced his candidacy for mayor of New York on stage, echoed a rallygoer who called Harris “the devil” and added that she is “the Antichrist.” Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson joked that Harris, who is of Black and Indian descent, would be “the first Samoan Malaysian low IQ, former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.”

But no comments generated more attention than an opening routine from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who spoke early in the afternoon. His jokes included saying Latinos “love making babies” because “there’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.” 

Then he targeted Puerto Rico, describing it as “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.” Then he told a joke about how he and a Black friend “carved watermelons” together. There was an uncomfortable reception to his punch lines in the arena.

Within hours of his remarks, multiple pro-Trump GOP members of Congress condemned him. 

Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., said she was “disgusted” by his “racist comment calling Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” adding the “rhetoric does not reflect GOP values.” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said the joke “bombed for a reason,” was “not funny” and “not true.” And Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., said Hinchcliffe’s comments were “completely classless & in poor taste.”

“I’m proud to be Puerto Rican,” Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., who is locked in a competitive House race, posted on X. “My mom was born and raised in Puerto Rico. It’s a beautiful island with a rich culture and an integral part of the USA. The only thing that’s ‘garbage’ was a bad comedy set. Stay on message.”

The Trump campaign sought to distance itself from Hinchcliffe’s routine. In a statement, senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said: “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

The Trump campaign had hyped up the event as what amounted to Trump’s final pitch to voters in the closing days of the election. And he did offer some new policy positions from the stage, among them that he would “support a tax credit for family caregivers who take care of a parent or loved one,” which comes as Harris has heavily promoted her proposal to expand Medicare to allow it to cover long-term in-home care.

Homing in on his core immigration pitch, Trump also said he wants “any migrant who kills someone in the U.S.” to face the death penalty.” And he offered insight into his thinking about how Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former independent presidential candidate who is backing Trump’s bid, would fit into a future administration.

Kennedy would “go wild on health,” Trump said. “I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on medicines.”

Trump visited the Manhattan arena amid a stretch that has also seen him campaign in California and Colorado, two additional states that aren’t among the front-line presidential battlegrounds and are virtually assured of going for Harris this fall. Trump has also planned a rally for Virginia on one of the final days of the campaign, visiting another state where Harris is the odds-on favorite to win. His campaign has said such events are “high-impact settings” where his remarks will break through in the key battlegrounds. 

But Trump and his supporters made it clear from the stage they actually think they can win New York.

“I had a friend of mine, smart guy, he’s a billionaire, texted me this morning and he said, ‘Why the hell are you guys wasting your time in New York City instead of going to a swing state?’” businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who sought the GOP nomination this year, said in his remarks. “You wonder what I told him? I said: ‘Welcome to 2024. New York is a swing state.’”

Joe Biden won New York by 23 points in 2020. It hasn’t voted Republican at the presidential level since it went for Ronald Reagan 40 years ago. But Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul won by a significantly narrower margin in 2022 than Biden did two years before.

In his speech, Trump, who spent most of his life as a prominent New York real estate magnate, said a victory in the state “would be such an honor,” noting a Republican hasn’t won in decades.

“They all say, ‘Sir, you’re wasting your money,’” he said. “I don’t think so.”

Democrats for weeks have compared the Madison Square Garden event to a pro-Nazi rally that took place at a previous iteration of the famed arena in 1939. Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly said recently that Trump fits the definition of a fascist and spoke positively about Adolf Hitler. Trump denied having spoken positively of Hitler, but Harris has promoted Kelly’s account, and she has called the account “deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous.”

“I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here,” wrestling star Hulk Hogan said in his speech. “I don’t see no stinkin’ domestic terrorists in here. The only thing I see in here are a bunch of hard-working men and women that are real Americans, brother.”

Trump, meanwhile, thanked New York City’s recently indicted mayor, Eric Adams, for saying Trump shouldn’t be called a fascist.

“That’s nice,” Trump said, adding that Adams, a Democrat, “has been treated pretty badly.”

“Very nice,” he said.

Trump expressed a strong desire to shape policy in New York City should he win this fall, promising to work with Adams and Hochul. It was similar to his messaging at a Bronx rally this spring.

But that rally wasn’t at the venue simply known as The Garden, a staple in New York City and a place Trump has long wanted to campaign at. On Sunday, his wish was fulfilled.

“This is unbelievable. I’ve watched the Knicks and Rangers here,” he said, referring to two of New York’s professional basketball and hockey teams. “There’s no place like Madison Square Garden.”