There’s an old saying – “Loose lips sink ships” – and it’s apparent that there’s something else that loose lips can do: Sink, or at least deal a severe, perhaps fatal, blow to the effort of a presidential nominee to become president.
There is a week to go before the close of what is absolutely and unquestionably the most important election in the history of the United States of America – and, in the final days of the election, in a race with razor-thin margins nationally as well as in the seven battleground states, one off-color joke by a B-list comedian told at Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump’s major campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York is having very severe negative repercussions.
On Sunday night, Oct. 27, the comedian told a joke that could possibly take the election away from Trump and hand it to Harris.
In his joke, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, known primarily for his comedy podcast “Kill Tony,” said the following: “There’s a lot going on. 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.”
At the rally, Hinchcliffe also made some other remarks that didn’t go over well at all with the Puerto Rican people, and other jokes came under attack from both Democrats and Republicans alike, such as a watermelon joke while referring to a black man in the audience.
Those who love Trump and those who hate him do agree on at least this one thing: Trump’s statements are often incendiary and produce a political backlash that can hurt him and his efforts.
However, nothing ever seems to damage Trump: His base is his base forever and they are with him come hell or high water.
But even many of Trump’s most devoted MAGA fans agree that he often doesn’t do himself any favors when he says something beyond the pale – such as many of the remarks he’s made this year about his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris that are so extreme they’re turning off women voters in droves.
Given the state of the presidential race today, it seems crystal clear that, if Trump had just stayed on message and talked about his economy versus President Joe Biden’s, and his immigration policies versus Biden’s, and his foreign policy versus Biden’s, then he would have strolled easily into the White House once again – against either Biden or Harris – without breaking a sweat.
However, instead, for nearly a decade now, Trump has been making inflammatory statements – though none of that seems to have hurt him in the least. Here he is, once again, as the person favored to be the next president of the United States.
So, it would be the height of irony if the thing that finally took him out of the running was a single joke that didn’t even come out of his own mouth – but, instead, was a joke that came out of the mouth of someone else, someone who most Americans had never even heard of until last Sunday Night.
But the damage was obviously very real.
JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, when asked about the controversy, said, “I’ve heard about the joke – I haven’t actually seen the joke that you mentioned,” and he added that it’s time Americans develop a thicker skin, stay focused on the issues and not get caught up on a single joke someone told at a rally.
On Tuesday morning, on an ABC News show, Trump was asked about the “floating island of garbage” comment, and Trump, like Vance, said he didn’t know anything about the comedian or the joke.
“I don’t know him; someone put him up there,” Trump said. “I don’t know who he is.”
Trump added that he hadn’t even heard the joke.
The problem though, is that even if Trump and Vance haven’t heard the joke, there are hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican Americans who heard it loud and clear – and they are raging mad about it.
One problem for the Trump campaign is that Puerto Rico is actually a beautiful island filled with kind people who take extreme pride in their homeland.
So, not surprisingly, many of them were absolutely furious at the remarks.
The state of Pennsylvania – considered the most critical battleground state in this election – has more than 400,000 Puerto Rican residents, and about three-fourths of them are registered voters.
While Trump didn’t make the joke, most of his supporters agree that the former president’s best response would have been to – as soon as he took over the mic at the rally – let everyone know that he did not appreciate the joke and he did not agree at all with the comedian’s assessment of the island or its people.
The next best would have been if Trump had made a public statement after the rally disavowing the joke.
Trump campaign spokesperson Daniella Alvarez did state on the day following the rally, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,”
However, the Puerto Rican people want to hear that same sentiment directly from Trump himself.
In a letter to Trump that was also posted on social media the night after the rally, the archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Roberto González Nieves, wrote: “It is not sufficient for your campaign to apologize. It is important that you, personally, apologize for these comments.”’
However, one of the things that makes Donald Trump Donald Trump is that he never apologizes.
In the letter, the archbishop wrote that Hinchcliffe’s comments about Puerto Ricans “not only provoke sinister laughter but hatred.”
And highly popular Puerto Rican Pennsylvania radio personality Victor Martinez said on CNN on Tuesday, October 28, that the callers to his show were getting angrier and angrier every day that an apology from Trump didn’t come.
“I have described this as a ‘Gift from the gods [for the Harris campaign],” he said. “I mean, what are the chances that Kamala Harris is at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia at the same time that this is happening in the Trump campaign rally in New York. This has definitely gotten to the Puerto Rican community in the entire state. I mean, we have about 500,000 Puerto Ricans here in the state of Pennsylvania. Allentown, where I’m at right now, where Trump is going to be tonight, is about 55 percent Latino – and about 45 percent are Puerto Rican.”
That’s in a pivotal state where the margin of victory by either candidate could literally be measured in the hundreds of votes.
Martinez added that other cities in that battleground state also have large Puerto Rican populations. He said there are hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans in other battleground states as well, and he noted that there are 100,000 in the highly contested state of North Carolina. (The actual number is closer to 115,000.)
“This definitely is going to have an impact,” he said.
“One of the things that I heard the most this morning from my audience, and we broadcast our morning show through five radio stations in the state – so we have about 250,000 Latinos that listen to us in the state of Pennsylvania. I specifically asked the audience, ‘OK, what about if Trump today all of a sudden decides to apologize, all of a sudden decides to distance himself from the comedian? Would that be OK? Would you take that into consideration? Overwhelmingly, everybody was like, ‘No, too late; the train has left the station.’“
He added, “He could have done it Sunday night Monday or even this morning – and for him now to say ‘I don’t know the comedian; I didn’t even hear the joke’… I’m pretty sure by now he heard the joke and I’m pretty sure by now he could have personally said something to the Puerto Rican community.”
Martinez stated: “Donald Trump doesn’t himself acknowledge the fact that this was wrong, that this is unacceptable.”
He also stated that Puerto Ricans are a very proud people.
“Once you offend our island, our beautiful island in the Caribbean, you are messing with us,” he told CNN. “I’m telling you – if you know anything about Puerto Ricans – you don’t mess with our island or our flag. Those are sacred to us.”
Highly influential Puerto Rican superstars were also extremely upset.
Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican music icon with 45 million social media followers expressed his support for Kamala Harris after the rally, and Ricky Martin, another musician with millions of social media followers, posted, “This is what they think of us. Vote for Kamala Harris.”
Cenk Uygur, the main voice on the Young Turks YouTube channel, stated, “You’re a week out from the election. This is a massive rally in Madison Square Garden that the entire press is going to pay attention to, and you didn’t bother vetting the comic… This is doing a lot of damage.”
He added that he’s worried about the safety of the comic
There’s an old saying – “Loose lips sink ships” – and it’s apparent that there’s something else that loose lips can do: Sink, or at least deal a severe, perhaps fatal, blow to the effort of a presidential nominee to become president.
There is a week to go before the close of what is absolutely and unquestionably the most important election in the history of the United States of America – and, in the final days of the election, in a race with razor-thin margins nationally as well as in the seven battleground states, one off-color joke by a B-list comedian told at Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump’s major campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York is having very severe negative repercussions.
On Sunday night, Oct. 27, the comedian told a joke that could possibly take the election away from Trump and hand it to Harris.
In his joke, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, known primarily for his comedy podcast “Kill Tony,” said the following: “There’s a lot going on. 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.”
At the rally, Hinchcliffe also made some other remarks that didn’t go over well at all with the Puerto Rican people, and other jokes came under attack from both Democrats and Republicans alike, such as a watermelon joke while referring to a black man in the audience.
Those who love Trump and those who hate him do agree on at least this one thing: Trump’s statements are often incendiary and produce a political backlash that can hurt him and his efforts.
However, nothing ever seems to damage Trump: His base is his base forever and they are with him come hell or high water.
But even many of Trump’s most devoted MAGA fans agree that he often doesn’t do himself any favors when he says something beyond the pale – such as many of the remarks he’s made this year about his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris that are so extreme they’re turning off women voters in droves.
Given the state of the presidential race today, it seems crystal clear that, if Trump had just stayed on message and talked about his economy versus President Joe Biden’s, and his immigration policies versus Biden’s, and his foreign policy versus Biden’s, then he would have strolled easily into the White House once again – against either Biden or Harris – without breaking a sweat.
However, instead, for nearly a decade now, Trump has been making inflammatory statements – though none of that seems to have hurt him in the least. Here he is, once again, as the person favored to be the next president of the United States.
So, it would be the height of irony if the thing that finally took him out of the running was a single joke that didn’t even come out of his own mouth – but, instead, was a joke that came out of the mouth of someone else, someone who most Americans had never even heard of until last Sunday Night.
But the damage was obviously very real.
JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, when asked about the controversy, said, “I’ve heard about the joke – I haven’t actually seen the joke that you mentioned,” and he added that it’s time Americans develop a thicker skin, stay focused on the issues and not get caught up on a single joke someone told at a rally.
On Tuesday morning, on an ABC News’ show, Trump was asked about the “floating island of garbage” comment, and Trump, like Vance, said he didn’t know anything about the comedian or the joke.
“I don’t know him; someone put him up there,” Trump said. “I don’t know who he is.”
Trump added that he hadn’t even heard the joke.
The problem though, is that even if Trump and Vance haven’t heard the joke, there are hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican Americans who heard it loud and clear – and they are raging mad about it.
One problem for the Trump campaign is that Puerto Rico is actually a beautiful island filled with kind people who take extreme pride in their homeland.
So, not surprisingly, many of them were absolutely furious at the remarks.
The state of Pennsylvania – considered the most critical battleground state in this election – has more than 400,000 Puerto Rican residents, and about three-fourths of them are registered voters.
While Trump didn’t make the joke, most of his supporters agree that the former president’s best response would have been to – as soon as he took over the mic at the rally – let everyone know that he did not appreciate the joke and he did not agree at all with the comedian’s assessment of the island or its people.
Next best would have been if Trump had made a public statement after the rally disavowing the joke.
Trump campaign spokesperson Daniella Alvarez did state on the day following the rally, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,”
However, the Puerto Rican people want to hear that same sentiment directly from Trump himself.
In a letter to Trump that was also posted on social media the night after the rally, the archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Roberto González Nieves, wrote: “It is not sufficient for your campaign to apologize. It is important that you, personally, apologize for these comments.”’
However, one of the things that makes Donald Trump Donald Trump is that he never apologizes.
In the letter, the archbishop wrote that Hinchcliffe’s comments about Puerto Ricans “not only provoke sinister laughter but hatred.”
And highly popular Puerto Rican Pennsylvania radio personality Victor Martinez said on CNN on Tuesday, October 28, that the callers to his show were getting angrier and angrier every day that an apology from Trump didn’t come.
“I have described this as a ‘Gift from the gods [for the Harris campaign],” he said. “I mean, what are the chances that Kamala Harris is at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia at the same time that this is happening in the Trump campaign rally in New York. This has definitely gotten to the Puerto Rican community in the entire state. I mean, we have about 500,000 Puerto Ricans here in the state of Pennsylvania. Allentown, where I’m at right now, where Trump is going to be tonight, is about 55 percent Latino – and about 45 percent are Puerto Rican.”
That’s in a pivotal state where the margin of victory by either candidate could literally be measured in the hundreds of votes.
Martinez added that other cities in that battleground state also have large Puerto Rican populations. He said there are hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans in other battleground states as well, and he noted that there are 100,000 in the highly contested state of North Carolina. (The actual number is closer to 115,000.)
“This definitely is going to have an impact,” he said.
“One of the things that I heard the most this morning from my audience, and we broadcast our morning show through five radio stations in the state – so we have about 250,000 Latinos that listen to us in the state of Pennsylvania. I specifically asked the audience, ‘OK, what about if Trump today all of a sudden decides to apologize, all of a sudden decides to distance himself from the comedian? Would that be OK? Would you take that into consideration? Overwhelmingly, everybody was like, ‘No, too late; the train has left the station.’“
He added, “He could have done it Sunday night Monday or even this morning – and for him now to say ‘I don’t know the comedian; I didn’t even hear the joke’… I’m pretty sure by now he heard the joke and I’m pretty sure by now he could have personally said something to the Puerto Rican community.”
Martinez stated: “Donald Trump doesn’t himself acknowledge the fact that this was wrong, that this is unacceptable.”
He also stated that Puerto Ricans are a very proud people.
“Once you offend our island, our beautiful island in the Caribbean, you are messing with us,” he told CNN. “I’m telling you – if you know anything about Puerto Ricans – you don’t mess with our island or our flag. Those are sacred to us.”
Highly influential Puerto Rican superstars were also extremely upset.
Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican music icon with 45 million social media followers expressed his support for Kamala Harris after the rally, and Ricky Martin, another musician with millions of social media followers, posted, “This is what they think of us. Vote for Kamala Harris.”
Cenk Uygur, the main voice on the Young Turks YouTube channel, stated, “You’re a week out from the election. This is a massive rally in Madison Square Garden that the entire press is going to pay attention to, and you didn’t bother vetting the comic… This is doing a lot of damage.”
He added that he’s worried about the safety of the comic.
“So,” Uygur continued, “if Trump loses, people on the right think that it’s because of this guy then I worry about him getting attacked by the right – like, what did you do? You cost us the election. Don’t do that – he’s just the comic, OK? But this is not a good moment for the Republican campaign, or for Trump, and, just as I told you, the one thing that could cost them. My intuition is that Trump is leading, but he juggles live hand grenades and this hand grenade just blew up on him.”
“So,” Uygur continued, “if Trump loses, people on the right think that it’s because of this guy then I worry about him getting attacked by the right – like, what did you do? You cost us the election. Don’t do that – he’s just the comic, OK? But this is not a good moment for the Republican campaign, or for Trump, and, just as I told you, the one thing that could cost them. My intuition is that Trump is leading, but he juggles live hand grenades and this hand grenade just blew up on him.”
