Former President Donald Trump hosted a rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Oct. 27. The almost six-hour-long rally featured guests such as Dr. Phil McGraw, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Tucker Carlson and, of course, Trump’s new best friend Elon Musk. The rally quickly turned into a disaster filled with racist remarks and insults with the guests’ questionable speeches given.
Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made a controversial speech that just might have cost Trump the election. There is one part in particular that has been stirring up conversations online, Hinchcliffe stated, “I don’t know if you 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.”
Hinchcliffe continued his speech with insulting remarks about Israel and Palestine. “Best out of three. Rock, paper, scissors. You know the Palestinians, they’re going to throw a rock every time. But you also know the Jews have a hard time throwing that paper.”
Shortly after this speech, popular music artists Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, who are Puerto Rican, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Instagram. Hinchcliffe later took to social media to defend his joke. In his quote-tweet to Tim Walz’s reaction to the speech, Hinchcliffe wrote, “Wild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist.” Harris was also quick to make a statement about the horrific comments surrounding Puerto Rico with a video where she explained her plan for the island.
To poke fun at the ongoing debate from Republicans on Harris’ race, former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson referred to Harris as “Samoan-Malaysian.” More speakers such as radio host Sid Rosenburg implemented race as well as immigration into their speeches. Rosenberg stated, “you got homeless and veterans, Americans sleeping in their own feces on a bench in Central Park, but the fucking illegals, they get whatever they want, don’t they?”
A few days after the rally, the former president discussed his questionable thoughts on how the night went. According to ABC News, “I don’t think anybody’s ever seen what happened the other night at Madison Square Garden, the love, the love in that room – it was breathtaking…”
Many people were understandably offended by the rally and believed that it was inappropriate. USA Today referred to the rally as an “insult to decency” and “an hours-long freak show.”
jcaramag@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of @realowenklinsky, X
