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LAST UPDATE | 29 Oct 2024
DONALD TRUMP DOUBLED down on anti-immigrant rhetorics today, calling for a mandatory death penalty in cases where migrants kill US citizens and mass deportations, amid calls for him to apologise for a comedian’s racist jokes.
The Trump campaign this week has suddenly found itself on the back foot as the fallout continues from a rally in New York on Sunday, during which a comedian made racist jokes.
At the rally in Madison Square Garden, a comedian named Tony Hinchcliffe made a joke in which he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage”.
In a segment that took aim at immigrants, and Latinos in particular, Hinchcliffe said: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
He also said that Latinos “love making babies” while talking about the number of people of Latin American origin living in the US. The Republican candidate’s campaign team has issued a rare statement of contrition following the outcry over the racist joke.
Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said in a statement that the joke “does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign”.
Celebrities, political opponents, members of the Christian church in Puerto Rico and even candidates from his own party have called on the Republican presidential candidate to apologise personally for the remarks since Sunday.
At a low-energy and slow event in Mar-A-Lago, Florida today – where Trump was over an hour late – he said his opponent, democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President of the US Kamala Harris, was running on a “campaign of hate”.
Trump did not apologise for the remarks today.
He again denounced criticism from his opponents that he is a ‘Nazi’ and claimed the Democratic Party had said that Madison Square Garden had been chosen because an American Nazi organisation had held a rally at the same location in 1939.
There is no evidence that anyone from the Harris campaign or the Democratic party have made those remarks or referenced the 1939 event when speaking about Trump’s rally on Sunday.
At today’s event, Trump claimed immigrants, Harris, US President Joe Biden and elected officials from the Democratic party are ‘destroying’ the United States.
He claimed that countries like Venezuela are seeing crime rates decrease due to the number of people who are leaving their cities for the US and that immigrants are being granted illegitimate ‘legal’ status by the Government.
Many of these claims were either not followed up by evidence or have no basis in fact.
CNN stopped its broadcast because of the “number of false claims” made by the Presidential candidate. Fox News also fact-checked the former President after he had made false statements claiming he won the 2020 election after the event concluded.
!!!! Harris Faulkner immediate after Trump's speech: "At the very beginning you heard the former president talk about a stolen election. And while he may feel a certain way, the facts remain Joe Biden was declared the winner ... states certified those results." pic.twitter.com/8cyHzclTPD
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2024
Trump said, if elected, his administration will seek to imprison anyone who enters the country again after being deported for up to 10 years. “We don’t want them back,” he told the crowd.
He said his administration will also seek to impose the death penalty on any ‘migrant’ who is found guilty of murder of an American citizen or law enforcement officer.
He claimed law enforcement recruitment figures are down because police officers do not want to deal with the increasing crime rate, which he attributes to and says is as the result of immigrants.
A report from last year said that recruitment in the US police is increasing for the first time since 2020 - when Trump was last in office. Claims that the rate of violent crime is increasing in the US are false and have long been debunked.
“We gotta get them out of here,” Trump said. “We’re gonna get them out fast.”
There are have been a number of calls for Trump to apologise personally.
The Archbishop of Puerto Rico, Roberto O. Gonzalez Nieves, has written a public letter to Trump saying, “It is not sufficient for your campaign to apologise. It is important that you, personally, apologise for these comments.”
Puerto Rico’s Republican Party chairman Angel M. Cintrón has also demanded an apology from Trump. There has been a slew of criticism from well-known pop culture figures as well.
Pop stars Jennifer Lopez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, and Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin have both publicly renewed support for Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris.
“This is what they think of us,” Martin wrote on Instagram.
Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny, who appeared at a Harris campaign event on Sunday, has also shared a video on Instagram in a show of support for the Democrat.
Republican politicians have come out with statements criticising the joke too.
Trump supporter and Republican Florida senator Rick Scott, who is in a tight race for reelection against a Latina congresswoman, was among the politicians and strategists who voiced anger on X.
“This joke bombed for a reason. It’s not funny and it’s not true,” he posted, while the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which has around three dozen members, called the rally “shameful.”
“Puerto Rico isn’t garbage, it’s home to fellow American citizens who have made tremendous contributions to our country,” Florida Senator Marco Rubio posted on X on Monday.
Puerto Rico isn’t garbage, it’s home to fellow American citizens who have made tremendous contributions to our country.
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) October 28, 2024
I understand why some people were offended by a comedians jokes last night. But those weren’t Trump’s words. They were jokes by an insult comic who offends…
But he also made a point to note that “those weren’t Trump’s words. They were jokes by an insult comic who offends.”
The island of Puerto Rico is a US territory, meaning it is effectively under US control, and there is a large diaspora population in the United States, notably in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
While Puerto Ricans are technically citizens of the United States, they do not have an elected representative in the US Congress and Puerto Rican residents cannot vote in presidential elections.
Trump has his own history with Puerto Rico from his time in office, when his administration was harshly criticised for its response to the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Includes reporting by Muiris O’Cearbhaill
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There can’t be much of Gaza left at this stage
@: Blame Hamas. They just use innocent Palestinians as a way of advancing their ideological motives without any concern for people’s lives. They knew the response from Israel would bring hell on Palestine! How do you expect a nation to act if state sponsored terrorists want to destroy them!?
@Sam Walsh: Britain managed not to carpet bomb Ireland whenever the IRA carried out an atrocity – because only a psycopath would justify genocide in response to a terrorist attack. The destroying is being carried out by the country that is illegally occupying Palestine, carpet bombing civilians with weapons & propaganda supplied by the EU/US.
I can show you multiple article of IDF raping Palestinian prisoners, show me what your claim is based on. Mainstream media have published a trove of unsubstantiated claims to justify carpet bombing civilians – there us no excuse for carpet bombing civilians
https://www.cair.com/cair_in_the_news/israeli-guards-rape-palestinian-women/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna72871
Hamas are evil but the IDF are even worse.
Oh you’re right, let’s just slaughter them all so! What a pathetic attempt to use the LGBTQ+ community to justify genocide.
Your question is absolutely irrelevant to the situation and is a very bad attempt at dehumanising the Palestinian people, a page right out of the Israeli playbook. Have a read of the below, you might educate yourself but I doubt it.
https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232088
Ok convince me. You say it’s a load of leftist nonsense, so show me the evidence to prove it. You made a statement, I disagreed and showed evidence to back up my point. Now it’s your turn. Convince me.
@kerrill thornhill: Clearly you’ve never even heard of the Belfast Blitz of WWII. Try looking it up on Wikipedia.
When half of Belfast was being evacuated and flattened by the Luftwaffe, city defenders were afraid to fire on the bombers lest they hit the RAF – who had apparently taken that weekend off and never turned up.
Unlike the Irish Fire Brigade who crossed the border to help people.
Ireland is a neutral country. Try to remember that.
Yes there are hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community in Palestine, just as there are in Israel and many other countries.
https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-734812
Yes there are morality police deployed by hamas, as there are groups in Israel that do the same:
https://dbpedia.org/page/Mishmeret_tzniyut
More lefty nonsense?
@kerrill thornhill: You’re telling me the reason Israel is bombing Palestine is because of “Propaganda supplied from the US/EU”?! And not because Hamas just slaughtered the most Jews since the holocaust in one of the greatest terrorist attacks ever, including Irish citizens. I love your great comparison of Hamas and the IRA (provos), perhaps the reason why Ireland wasn’t carpet bombed was because the IRA didn’t live in such a densely populated area and also the IRA didn’t purposely use human shields. The hypocrisy from pro-Palestinians is hilarious, they expect Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East to be destroyed even though it’s ancient Jewish land and Jews have always been persecuted, Israel is tiny sliver of land in the Middle East. Islamist terrorism sympathisers are a plague.
@Sam Walsh: Replace democracy with fascist theocracy.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-10-03/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israeli-neo-fascism-threatens-israelis-and-palestinians-alike/0000018a-f6a1-d12f-afbf-f7f5e33e0000
@Rochie1508: I didn’t think we were discussing these topics. Also if you want to converse with me, don’t send a link in which I cannot copy nor paste.
@Sam Walsh: That’s how arguments work, I make a statement and back it up with examples and then you do the same! Your old imperialist argument of Jews being entitled to the land is tired and jaded and shows your true colours. Even the Orthodox population of Israel can’t stand the zionists.
https://youtube.com/shorts/V6qS3B7onec?si=Y2M-O9BQUjWrPMyv
The world is slowly but surely waking up to the aggressive hate speech and ott outrage spouted by Israeli officials. The unwarranted attack on Antony Guterres was especially heinous and uncalled for.
You coming accross as quite the nut job. I have worked with dozens of Palestinians and Muslims, many of them are gay – they are no different than us. The idea of you playing this card to justify genocide is quite insane. Did you know homesexuality was illegal in ireland until 1993? Would a sane person have used this as an excuse for Britain to carpet bomb Dublin during the troubles…. your morality is perverse!
@Rochie1508: The entirety of the Middle East equates to an area of over 5 millions square miles, the area of Israel is just over 8 thousand square miles. It so happens to be that those 8 thousand square metres represents the most democratic and least barbaric society in the Middle East. You say Israel is an imperialist state, if that’s the case then isn’t every state imperialist as there has always been transfer of land through means of conflict etc. It is totally accurate to say current day Israel used to be Jewish land, the kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah go back to 2,000 BCE, and this isn’t just document through secondary sources, but also archeological evidence. I’m not going to pretend that Israel is perfect, Palestinians have had a rough time, but Israel aren’t the baddies.
@Sam Walsh: Your lies are absolutely laughable. Israel not barbaric? Please.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1782010
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_war_crimes_against_Israel
You are absolutely correct, it USED to be the land of Judea, 2000 years ago. Over the centuries Islam spread to the area but up to the early 20th century Jews and Muslims lived happily together, granted under Ottoman rule. Imagine someone came to your home, told you this was my ancestors house 2000 years ago you need to get out. Then the police arrive and forcibly remove you and if you fight back you get shot. Does that sound fair? Of course not! Your logic is twisted beyond belief!
Leave it to Israel to be one of the few nations capable of even greater atrocities than October 7th, they have shown the world they are worse than Hamas. They will never have peace.
Back in the real world, 3000 Palestinian children were killed by carpet bombing a concentration camp, over 9000 civilians. Your still spouting the lie that Hamas beheaded kids & other atrocity porn that has been amplified relentlessly to dehumanise Palestinians and justify genocide. Here you are justifying a real live genocide, while insisting Palestinians/Hamas are the savages – do you work for punch magazine?
@Allo Allo: Israel exaggerated the 7th of October Israeli deaths, the true death toll is closer to 700 than 1400 and about half of the Israeli deaths were soldiers and police, the IDF killed more of their own people than Hamas, Israel has a procedure to stop soldiers being captured, search for “the Hannibal Directive”.
Hamas are no angels and they murdered Israeli civilians on the day but they aren’t ISIS.
But most importantly, the people of Gaza are not Hamas.
@Allo Allo: So far they’ve killed more UN staff than Hamas commanders.
@: the fact you think Palestine/Isreal is right wing/left wing says more about your intelligence to be honest
You should read a book called ‘the great delusion’ by John Mearsheimer, the Liberal left as you call it are the main backers of zionism and ‘liberal hegemony’. As someone who works with dozens of Arabs/ Muslims (even gay ones!!!) from multiple countries – your description above is based on your own hatred and racism, not reality. No one ever chants push Jews to the sea, this is a racist trope – they chant Palestine will be free. If you’re worried about hostages, what’s your opinion on the >5000 Palestinians detained without trial?
A dating coach, what next, a divorce coach?
@Pato: they are around already in the states
@Pato: those people who can’t find someone, who struggle for the self confidence, the self belief to be able to find themselves a relationship.. should they just give up.. or can someone help.
We all need help in different ways. I know someone who used a dating coach and it changed their life.
Years ago we would have been skeptical of online dating..
Everyone deserves a chance at having someone.
And why not a divorce coach. It’s a lot to go through. Some people never recover and never find their way back into their life
Take a good close look at what’s happening to innocent Palestinians. You won’t read this in the IDF press releases that pass for journalism: https://twitter.com/PalBint/status/1717953561194078517?t=MykBvZRIY5hsalmFoh3tdQ&s=19
@kerrill thornhill: I could post hundreds of these awful images – if the people being killed were ‘like us’ I would not have to, because they would be plastered all over the front page of every news paper. https://twitter.com/Sprinter99800/status/1718146305946439930?t=iLGgH_7H_6SDTbiqVemEcQ&s=19
@kerrill thornhill: Just horrific: https://twitter.com/chilledasad100/status/1718179900123689337?t=xWRPcS-ucggC-vlWykphRQ&s=19
Do you have children, if they died would you consider them ‘collataral damage’? You are using dehumanising psychopathic language. Israel is almost exclusively targeting and killing civilians, yet perversely insisting on the moral high ground – you’ve completely lost your mind, as have most of our journalists by silent accepting the massacre of children. Complete inhumane insanity
The irony is incredible, to me, but probably not for the author.
Then you should probably not use or listen to this load of bollix ie the journal
No name blow me u bollix of thing
@Paul Moloney: no name no answer no balls no brains
Important points for everyone and especially for those with this specific experience. Thanks for a well-written, well-researched article, Jeanne!
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