NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday was supposed to be a homecoming — a celebration of the former president and the start of his closing message that he would be a president for all.
But even before Trump took the stage Sunday, that message was ringing hollow, with speakers at the rally embracing racist tropes and offensive rhetoric.
Tony Hinchcliffe, host of the show “Kill Tony,” opened the rally by calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” saying Latinos “love making babies” and claiming they “don’t pull out.”
“They come inside, just like they did to our country,” Hinchcliffe said.
At one point, he pointed to a Black supporter in the crowd and said he and the supporter had “carved watermelons together” at a Halloween party the night before.
Business influencer Grant Cardone said Kamala Harris and her “pimp handlers” will “destroy our country.”
Radio host Sid Rosenberg went on an unhinged rant against undocumented immigrants, saying “the fucking illegals” get “whatever they want.” (He also called Hillary Clinton a “sick son of a bitch.”)
David Rem, a childhood friend of Trump’s, called Harris the “Antichrist,” getting huge applause from the Trump-adoring crowd.
And former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was his normal self.
“I’m not going to do conspiracy, but I’m not not going to do conspiracy,” Giuliani said.
(A Trump adviser told NOTUS the campaign didn’t review speaker remarks before they were delivered, and separately, Danielle Alvarez — a senior adviser for the Trump campaign — told NOTUS that Hinchcliffe’s “joke” about Puerto Rico “does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”)
Nearly 20,000 people flocked from all over the country to Madison Square Garden to attend Trump’s rally. And even before Trump took the stage Sunday night, the news out of the rally was the harsh words Trump’s surrogates had used onstage.
Trump aides told reporters on Sunday that this rally would be a preview of the former president’s closing argument.
“That’s really the closing message, that Kamala Harris broke it, President Trump will fix it,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, said. “He’ll fix the economy. He’ll secure the border. He’s going to make a difference in everyday lives for every single American in this country, whether they’re blue states, red states or purple states. That’s the message.”
But by the time Trump finally took the stage around 7:15 p.m., the takeaway from the rally was already set that he was platforming more racist and offensive rhetoric.
Trump’s speech itself was mostly a regurgitation of his usual talking points. He doubled down on his rhetoric calling Democrats a “threat to democracy,” addressing the backlash from calling former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff the “enemy within” and once again affirming that, in his mind, they “are indeed the enemy from within.”
“These are the people who are doing such harm to our country with their open-border policies, record-setting inflation, green new scam and everything else that they’re doing. But we’re not going to let it happen anymore,” Trump said.
He also spent considerable time talking about inflation and the economy.
“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” he asked at one point, summoning Ronald Reagan’s famous question from a 1980 debate.
Trump said he would “end inflation,” “stop the invasion” and “bring back the American Dream.”
“The United States is now an occupied country but it will soon be an occupied country no longer,” he said, adding that, in nine days, it would be “liberation day in America.”
He also embraced some of the offensive attacks his speakers made against Harris earlier in the day, claiming his opponent can’t “put two sentences together.”
Meanwhile, Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, was watching the rally on a livestream with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez on Sunday and was far from amused.
When he was shown the clip of Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico an island of “floating garbage,” his reaction was bewilderment.
“Who is that jackwad?” Walz asked.
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Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.