Former President Trump, the Republican nominee for president, stuck to his script of border enforcement, crime and the economy, as he sought to draw a contrast from his Democratic rival, Vice President Harris.
“In less than four years, Kamala Harris has obliterated our borders,” Trump said in comments from his Mar-a-Lago resort Tuesday. “They’ve unleashed war and chaos all over the world. No person has caused so much destruction and death at home and abroad should ever be allowed to be president.”
Trump began the event with unfounded claims about election fraud in “bad spots” in Pennsylvania, where he and Harris are in a virtual tie, according to most credible polls. He claimed to be leading in all seven swing states, which are also tied. His appearance featured the families of those killed by migrants who were in the country illegally; both he and they blamed Harris and Democrats for the presence of illegal immigrants in the country. Trump also falsely suggested that countries around the world were sending criminals to the United States in order to lower their own crime rates. Border crossings from the Southern border with Mexico are at levels close to those as when Trump left office in 2021.
Trump also blamed Harris for an increase in violent crime, which is down, according to FBI data. He also claimed credit for the recent stock market spike, though the economy has rebounded during the Biden years from the pandemic downturn more rapidly than most other countries around the world.
Trump’s remarks, just a week from the final day of voting, comes a day after his campaign played clean up after a comedian warming up the crowd at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” — drawing outrage from Boricuas far and wide, and boosting support for Harris’ message.
“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Trump called the “love” at the Madison Square Garden event “breathtaking.”
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“There was love in that room,” he said. “There was love for the country.”
While several Republican lawmakers also distanced themselves from the comments, Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, dismissed the controversy, urging Americans “to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America — I’m so over it.”
Puerto Rican celebrities condemned the remarks by the comedian: Megastar Bad Bunny posted Harris’ video message pledging to work to create more jobs on the island and rebuild its rickety power grid to his 45 million Instagram followers, and other Puerto Rican artists followed suit.
Puerto Ricans living on the island don’t get to vote in the presidential election. But those living on the mainland do — and in Pennsylvania, a pivotal state in this year’s race, they wield significant clout.
According to UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute, about 580,000 Latinos in Pennsylvania can vote in this election — and most of them are Puerto Rican.
Later Tuesday, Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in Allentown, Pa. Harris, meanwhile, will return to the site of Trump’s Jan. 6 rally in Washington to lay out her case to voters.
This story will be updated.