Puerto Ricans, including Grammy Award-winning artists Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin, criticized a comedian who was performing at a closing campaign rally at Madison Square Garden when he mocked the island as a “floating island of trash.” In response, he widely criticized Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The backlash comes as Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris are deadlocked in a close race and are counting on Latino voters to help propel them into the White House.
Puerto Rican voters living in the United States make up the second largest Latino group in the country, including in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania.
Mr. Trump, whose support is growing among Latino men, has touted loud endorsements from Puerto Rican artists such as Anuel AA and Nicky Jam, who have strong support among young Latino voters. But comments by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by the stage name Kill Tony, sparked widespread bipartisan backlash against President Trump’s campaign.
“I couldn’t believe what I heard at that Trump rally. Seeing that kind of hatred on full display not only pissed me off, but also made me think that he will never sit in the Oval Office again. “We have strengthened our resolve to do everything in our power to make this happen,” said Matt Turk, Mayor of Allentown, Pennsylvania. More than half of Allentown’s residents are Latino, many of them Puerto Rican. Tuerck, a Democrat of Cuban descent, will be the city’s first Latino mayor.
Sign up to vote: Send a message to the USA TODAY elections team.
Florida Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, who was born in Puerto Rico, was also quick to condemn Hinchcliffe’s comments.
“I am disgusted by @TonyHinchcliffe’s racist comments calling Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of trash.’ This rhetoric does not reflect Republican values,” she wrote on X.
Speaking at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden just hours before the former president, Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico “now an island of trash in the ocean” and ridiculed Latinos.
In the face of the growing uproar, Daniel Alvarez, a senior adviser to President Trump, issued a statement Sunday night addressing Hinchcliffe’s comments. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or his campaign,” she said.
More than two-thirds of Puerto Ricans, or about 5.8 million people, live in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. Another 3.3 million Puerto Ricans live on the U.S. territory, but residents cannot vote in presidential elections.
Election Day is just a few days away. Sign up for USA TODAY’s On Politics newsletter for breaking news and exclusive analysis.
Shortly after Hinchcliffe’s comments went viral, international Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny shared a video of Harris criticizing Trump’s actions toward Puerto Rico during his time as president. On his Instagram Story, Bad Bunny shared a post from Harris’ Instagram account outlining her plans for the island.
Reggaetonero has since shared clips of his post several times with the following line: “We will never forget what Donald Trump did and did not do at a time when Puerto Rico needed a caring and competent leader. He abandoned the island and left behind a series of devastating hurricanes tried to block aid after being attacked, offering only paper towels and insults.
His last post on his Instagram Story, which included this clip, was punctuated with the words, “We will never forget what Donald Trump did.” Bad Bunny has 45.6 million followers on Instagram.
A Bad Bunny representative said Bad Bunny supports Harris. But he emphasized that Bad Bunny is focused on Puerto Rico. Bad Bunny has often spoken out about Puerto Rico’s local politics, recently urging residents to vote against the New Progressive Party, which is leading in November’s gubernatorial election.
Both Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump are competing for Latino voters, who are critical to determining the winner of the presidential election.
With less than 10 days until the Nov. 5 election, Harris earlier Sunday announced an “opportunity economy” plan for Puerto Rico that creates a task force to focus on creating economic opportunity and improving the power grid in Puerto Rico. Gap with Latino voters.
“While I truly believe that we are all part of a new generation of optimistic and ambitious leadership in this country, I find it very rewarding, if I do say so myself, to know that we can get things done. I’m impatient,” she said in a speech with Freddie. Tony’s Restaurant in the Puerto Rican neighborhood of Philadelphia.
In 2017, during the Trump era, Puerto Rico was hit by two consecutive hurricanes, killing more than 3,000 people and forcing thousands to evacuate.
President Trump at the time downplayed the damage caused by the storm and was criticized for his response to the storm after images of him throwing paper towels at islanders went viral.
Some people of Puerto Rican descent criticized President Trump for giving Hinchcliffe a platform at the rally.
Lexi Robinson, 49, a Puerto Rican who has lived in Brooklyn for 16 years, said she believes the former president is a “racist, dangerous, self-righteous deviant.”
“It’s despicable that Puerto Rico has been described as a floating island of garbage,” she said. “They are literally in New York, a city that is part of our great migration and to which we have given so much culture, love, music, food, community, and so much of ourselves. It’s a city.”
Robinson is voting for Harris in this election, even though he disagrees with the Democratic vice president’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza.
Following widespread backlash, including from Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, Hinchcliffe said he loves Puerto Rico and has vacationed there. He added that he was “teasing everyone” throughout the set.
“These people have no sense of humor,” he wrote.
