PALM BEACH, Fla. — Just one week before the November general election, former President Donald Trump delivered remarks from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.
Trump did not address the controversy surrounding a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City over the weekend, during which comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage."
At Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, Trump did reference the event overall, calling it “an absolute lovefest” in his hometown.
WATCH: Donald Trump delivers remarks at Mar-a-Lago
Hinchcliffe's remark has drawn wide condemnation and highlighted the rising power of a key Latino group in the swing state of Pennsylvania. He also made demeaning jokes about Black people, other Latinos, Palestinians and Jews during his routine before Trump’s appearance.
The Harris campaign has released an ad that will run online in battleground states targeting Puerto Rican voters and highlighting the comedian’s remarks.
The comments landed Vice President Kamala Harris a show of support from Puerto Rican music star Bad Bunny and prompted reactions from Republicans in Florida and Puerto Rico.
The president of Puerto Rico’s Republican Party, Ángel Cintrón, rejected the comments of a comedian at a Trump rally in New York where he called the U.S. territory “a floating island of garbage.”
Cintrón said the “poor attempt at comedy” by Tony Hinchcliffe on Sunday was “disgraceful, ignorant and totally reprehensible.”
“There is no room for absurd and racist comments like that. They do not represent the conservative values of republicanism anywhere in our nation,” Cintrón said in a statement.
He noted that there are 3 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico and nearly 6 million in the U.S. mainland.
“Whether we are Republicans or Democrats, we are American and Puerto Rican citizens proud of our roots and incalculable contributions to American democracy for more than one hundred years,” Cintrón said.
A week away from the end of voting in the general election, Trump reflected on his presidential run Tuesday, saying, “We’ve had a great campaign," predicting that Harris will have to go home and “get herself a job someplace, who knows.”
At Tuesday's Mar-a-Lago rally, Tammy Nobles talked about the death of her daughter, saying the perpetrator was an MS-13 gang member in the country illegally.
Michael Koppy, owner of Go Green Dry Cleaners, talked about how he has had to help other small businesses unable to keep up with inflation and rising costs.
Christy Shamblin, whose daughter-in-law Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee was killed during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, said Donald Trump “demonstrates peace through strength.”
Saying that the economy under Harris’ time in office has caused destruction, Trump said that any boon was “fake.”
He then cited “one of the most respected people on Wall Street” as saying that “the economy is only good” because “people think Trump is going to get elected.”
As he has many times along the campaign trail, Trump decried federal authorities for dropping plane-loads of migrants “all over the Midwest,” mentioning Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio.
Saying he was announcing the intent “for the first time,” Trump said that as president he would be “seizing the assets of the criminal gangs and drug cartels,” and using those assets “to create a compensation fund to provide restitution for the victims of migrant crime.”
Immigration reform — and blaming Democrats for issues caused by an influx of immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border — has long been Trump’s signature campaign issue, and a week out from Election Day, he is sticking to that.
Saying that “we talk about inflation and the economy,” Trump added, “To me, there’s nothing more important than the fabric of our country being destroyed,” calling the border “the single biggest issue.”
Trump played a video featuring comments from the mother of Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old Texas girl who was found dead in a creek not far from her home.
Police charged two Venezuelan men who had entered the U.S. illegally with the girl’s murder.
Alexis Nungaray said that her daughter is “six feet in the ground based off of” Harris’ decisions and called for Trump’s reelection.
Trump accused Harris of not caring about the impact of her actions in what he called her “campaign of absolute hate,” saying that she intends to “keep this misery going, and she’s going to keep it going for as long as she can.”
Trump alleged that Harris “keeps talking about Hitler and Nazis because her record is horrible.”
Trump said that the “three great people” on stage with him would share their own stories about “how their lives have been shattered” by Harris’ policies.
The GOP nominee said his Democratic rival, now Harris, is running on a “campaign of destruction” and “of absolute hate,” accusing her team of “perhaps even trying to destroy our country.”
Trump again said Democrats “stole the presidency of the United States” by ousting Biden from their ticket this year.
Supporters cheered his name and raised cellphones in the air as he walked into the room, exactly one week before Election Day.
Two days ahead of Halloween, the former president walked out just after the playing of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” which has become a staple at many of his campaign rallies.
Trump began his remarks by saying that things are “going very well” but noted some “bad spots in Pennsylvania where some serious things have been caught or are in the process of being caught.”
Reading from paper on the podium in front of him, Trump began by criticizing Harris, saying she “has obliterated our borders” and has “caused so much destruction and death at home and abroad.”
Dozens of supporters, many clad in pro-Trump gear, stood near their seats and craned their necks to see if the GOP nominee and former president were about to enter an ornate Mar-a-Lago room set up for his remarks.
Several American flags and a screen with the words, “TRUMP WILL FIX IT!” were set up along the platform from which Trump was expected to speak.
A supporter of Trump who attended his event at Mar-a-Lago and heads the Republican Latino Club of Palm Beach said in Spanish it was important to clarify that the former president was not the one who made the crude comments about Puerto Rico.
“He is a comedian. He tries to be funny and says a lot of nonsense. The man is dumb. He has no clue about Puerto Rico and doesn’t know our culture. He screwed up. We have to forgive and let it go,” said Lydia Maldonado, who is Puerto Rican. “Our economy needs a change. Enough of this.”
The Allentown School District is closed ahead of Trump’s Pennsylvania visit on Tuesday. The district said in a statement that schools will be closed “out of an abundance of caution” since the rally is “expected to bring large crowds, heavy traffic and potential disruptions that may impact the safety and security of our students and staff.”
Trump is due to speak at the PPL Center in downtown Allentown at 7 p.m. ET.
Harris will deliver her campaign’s “closing argument” from the same spot in Washington where Trump helped incite a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Harris’ address from the grassy Ellipse near the White House on Tuesday is designed to encourage Americans to visualize their alternate futures if she or Trump takes over the Oval Office in less than three months.
Harris, who spent years working as a prosecutor, has spent her campaign for president laying out the case to voters for why she should be elected, a top aide said Tuesday.
Cedric Richmond says over the past three months Harris has given her opening statement and laid out evidence and the facts for voters.
On Tuesday, she’ll deliver a speech meant to sum it all up.
“She’ll make her closing argument directly to the American people — or the jury — and that’s who’s going to decide the outcome of this election,” he said. “And that’s how it should be.”
Richmond says the speech will be about the “clear choice voters are facing this election between Trump and his obsession with himself versus her new generation of leadership that is focused on the American people.”
Harris chose the area near the White House and Washington Monument to speak on Tuesday because “it’s a reminder of the gravity of the job,” her campaign chairwoman says.
Campaign leader Jen O’Malley Dillon says the location, where Donald Trump helped incite a violent mob on Jan. 6, 2021, is a visual reminder of how much a president can do for good — or for ill.
It’s a “stark visualization of probably the most infamous example of Donald Trump and how he’s used his power for bad,” she said.
But Harris won’t spend a lot of time rehashing the violence of that day or recounting Trump’s continued efforts to lie about the election and sow doubt over voting. O’Malley Dillon says Harris will focus on talking about what her generation of leadership “really means,” and how much she will work to shape the country and impact people’s lives for the better.
Harris is doing five interviews Tuesday, including one with a Spanish-language radio in Pennsylvania aimed at Latino voters, in particular Puerto Ricans.
The interviews come after a comic at Donald Trump’s rally on Sunday made racist and vile jokes that singled out Puerto Ricans among other groups. Trump did not denounce the racist jokes. But he claimed he didn’t know the comic who gave a live performance at the venue before the Republican nominee took the stage.
Harris is also doing interviews in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. That’s before she gives a speech in Washington later Tuesday where she’ll lay out her closing arguments.
Trump said he doesn’t know the comic who made racist and vile jokes at his big Madison Square Garden rally. But he’s not denouncing the comments either.
“I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is,” Trump told ABC News in an interview Tuesday ahead of his remarks at Mar-a-Lago, according to the network.
The comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, had told a series of raunchy and crude jokes, including calling Puerto Rico an “island of floating garbage.”
The comments have drawn outrage from Puerto Rican leaders with just a week to go before the election.
In the interview, Trump also insisted he hadn’t heard Hinchcliffe’s comments, according to ABC. But, “When asked what he made of them, he did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn’t hear the comments.”
