'Maybe' it’s racist: JD Vance tries to whitewash Trump rally attack on Puerto Rico

28 October 2024

Trump Republican vice-presidential running mate JD Vance appears to be trying to whitewash a racist attack on Puerto Rico, made Sunday by an invited comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, whose “joke” has led to massive outrage, especially by Latino Americans, and led some to ask if it could cost the GOP the White House.

Tony Hinchcliffe described the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean,” and said, “these Latinos, they love making babies, too, just know that. They do, they do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country,” before he began talking about Black people carving watermelons.

Senator Vance’s effort to downplay the “joke” included urging Americans to “stop getting so offended at every little thing,” while claiming he had not “seen” the comedian’s remarks. He also mischaracterized Vice President Kamala Harris’ comments about the Trump rally.

“Now I, I didn’t, I, I’ve heard about the joke,” Vance told supporters at a rally in Wisconsin Monday afternoon. “I haven’t actually seen the joke that you mentioned, but I think that it’s telling that Kamala Harris’s closing message is essentially that all of Donald Trump’s voters are Nazis, and you should get really pissed off about a comedian telling a joke.”

“That is not the message of a winning campaign.”

“And most importantly, it’s not the message of a person who’s fit to be the president of the United States of America,” Vance claimed. “I, and, and in my own view on this is, look, again, I haven’t seen the joke.”

“I, I, you know, maybe maybe it’s a stupid racist joke, as you said, maybe it’s not, I haven’t seen it, I’m not gonna comment on the specifics of the joke, but I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States in America. I’m just I’m so over it.”

Vance did not appear to denounce the “joke,” while Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams responded almost immediately to Vance’s remarks.

“Besides the obvious B.S. that he ‘hasn’t seen’ the Puerto Rico ‘joke,’ this is weird because the Trump campaign last night claimed to disavow it… Vance now appears to walk that back, defending the ‘joke’ and saying they think people shouldn’t be offended by it.

Watch videos of Vice President Harris and Senator Vance below or at this link.

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