NEW YORK – Former President Donald Trump promised “America’s new golden age” of closed borders and world peace as he gathered a sellout crowd at Madison Square Garden in his hometown in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump led the more than six-hour rally with nearly 30 speakers, some of whom insulted Latinos and attacked Democratic nominee Harris over her race, and he vowed to “make America great again, and that will happen quickly.”
“It’s called America First, and it’s going to happen like no one has ever seen before,” Trump said, adding: “We will not be overrun, we will not be conquered.” We will be a free and proud nation again. Everyone will succeed.”
But the event also sparked intense criticism from Democrats over comments made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who addressed Trump in the afternoon hours, calling Puerto Rico a “current floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.”
The joke could prove politically problematic for Republicans woos the Latino voteand especially in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans live.
According to a Pew Research Center, there are 5.6 million Puerto Ricans living in the United States analysis of census data, and about 8% of them live in Pennsylvania.
Hinchcliffe, who hosts a podcast called “Kill Tony,” also said that Latinos “love making babies” and made a suggestive joke about them.
Republican US Senator Rick Scott of Florida, whose state is also home to hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans, wrote on
Democrats introduced U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Puerto Rican, and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz to spread the joke. “When some idiot calls Puerto Rico floating trash … that’s what they think about anyone who makes less money than them,” she said.
Harris presented a recent policy proposal in Philadelphia on Sunday concentrated in Puerto Rico.
The former president’s 80-minute speech contained mostly his usual campaign promises and stories, although he added one proposal to his list of tax breaks – a perk for those caring for ill or aging relatives at home. Harris too introduced At the beginning of October, a guideline for home care for seniors.
Trump repeated his popular promises to “ban transgender madness from our schools,” “stop the invasion at the border” and restore peace in Ukraine and the Middle East, where he said war never occurred , if he had been there office.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, told the crowd that his time campaigning nationally for Trump revealed “something very powerful out there that’s happening at the base.”
“I’m telling you, there’s an energy out there that we’ve never seen before,” Johnson said.
NYC stops a detour
Trump held the rally nine days before the polls closed on November 5th. According to the University of Florida Election Lab, nearly 42 million Americans in more than two dozen states have already voted early in person or by mail Early voting tracker.
Trump’s stop in New York took a detour from the seven battleground states in the spotlight this election – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. His campaign on Sunday also announced two upcoming stops in New Mexico and Virginia in the final week of the contest.
Still, both candidates faced Pennsylvania again over the weekend, and Trump delivered Remarks Saturday at Penn State University in State College, Pa., and Harris is spending Sunday rally a crowd in Philadelphia.
Harris spoke to the press in Philadelphia, a city she called “a very important part of our path to victory.”
“I’m very optimistic about the enthusiasm that’s here and the commitment that people of all backgrounds have to vote and to really invest in the future of our country,” Harris told reporters.
The vice president criticized Trump for using “dark and divisive language,” including his comments this week that America is “this.”garbage can in the world.”
“I think people are ready to turn the tide,” she said.
Tucker Carlson attacks Harris
Many speakers attacked Harris’ record – a standard feature of political rallies – but some comments cited her race. Trump’s childhood best friend, David Rem, clutched a crucifix and told the crowd that Harris was the “Antichrist.”
Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson described Harris as a “low-IQ Samoan Malaysian former California prosecutor” as he set up a scenario in which Democrats consider their candidate after the election.
“Donald Trump has made it possible for the rest of us to tell the truth about the world around us,” Carlson said earlier in his speech.
Harris’ mother was Indian and her father is Jamaican. Trump has already questioned her race during his time interview with the National Association of Black Journalists.
Carlson, who was fired from Fox News in April 2023, accused Democrats of telling “lies,” saying in a mocking voice, “Jan. 6 was a riot, they were unarmed, but it was very riotous.”
The violent attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 by thousands of Trump supporters came after the former president refused for months to recognize the 2020 presidential election, which President Joe Biden won.
Twenty-eight speakers preceded Trump, starting just after 2 p.m. and holding court until the former president took the stage at 7:13 p.m. Trump’s wife Melania introduced him in a sporadic campaign appearance and spoke briefly.
The line-up included Death Row Records founder, TV personality Dr. Phil, as well as wrestling pros Hulk Hogan and Dana White – some of whom spoke at the four-day Republican National Convention in July in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Speakers also included billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose super PAC poured more than $75 million into the campaign.
Musk urged the crowd to vote early and that he wants to see a “massive, crushing victory.”
“Make the margin of victory so large that you know what can’t happen,” he said, referring to debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Focus on NYC
The day was heavily influenced by the mystique of New York and Trump’s connections to it. New York City is not only where Trump grew up and followed his father’s path into real estate, but now also where he resides sentenced in May in a Manhattan court on 34 charges related to a hush-money scheme involving a porn star.
A vendor hawking campaign gear to supporters waiting to enter Madison Square Garden on Sunday morning advertised a hat that read, “I’m voting for convicted felon.”
Several speakers credited Trump with changing the New York skyline. The 58-story Trump Tower stands alongside its other real estate holdings on the island on 5th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.
“New York City created Donald Trump, but Donald Trump also created New York City,” said Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
Howard Lutnick, chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and co-chair of the Trump campaign’s “transition team,” told the story of the loss of just over 650 of his employees in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, by bin Laden was staged by the well-known terrorist Osama.
“We must elect Donald J. Trump president because we must dismantle jihad,” Lutnick said.
Lutnick chatted with Musk on stage and estimated that the pair could potentially cut federal spending by $2 trillion under a second Trump administration. Trump has selected the duo to lead a commission on government efficiency if elected.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who played a leading role in spreading Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election, received a standing ovation from the entire room.
He accused Biden and Harris of spreading “socialism, fascism and communism.”
Giuliani, a key player in Trump’s false claim that he won the 2020 election, appeared at the rally just days after a federal judge in New York ordered him to turn over his apartment and valuables to election workers in Georgia, whom he accused of defaming found guilty.
Giuliani, along with a handful of other speakers, also suggested that Democrats were responsible for the two assassination attempts on Trump.
“I’m not going to commit a conspiracy,” Giuliani said, “but it’s funny that they tried everything else and now they’re trying to kill him.”
The accusation was a theme throughout the event. One speaker after another implied or directly blamed Democrats for the two Trump assassination attempts without mentioning the perpetrators. The shooter in the first attempt was killed by law enforcement, and the second one who never shot Trump was charged in Florida; No ties to Democrats have been identified.
Trump focused some of his comments on New York City, referencing his childhood and adding that he had compassion for the city’s indicted mayor, Eric Adams.
The rally ended not with Trump’s signature closing performance of “YMCA” by the Village People, but with a live rendition of “New York, New York” by Christopher Macchio.
