‘I’ve never seen him’: Trump says he doesn’t know the comedian who made a racist joke about Puerto Rico

Donald Trump is trying to limit the damage. Seven days before the presidential elections in the United States, the Republican candidate distanced himself on Tuesday, October 29, from the comments, denounced as racist, by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe. Who compared Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage” during the former president’s meeting in New York on Sunday.

“I have no idea who he is. I’ve never seen him. I’ve never heard of him. And I don’t want to hear about him,” Donald Trump said seven days before the election, in an interview with Fox News. At the same time he assured that Tony Hinchcliffe has “nothing to do with the party.”

Beyond the latter’s statements, other comments provoked reactions during Donald Trump’s speech. A conservative activist called Kamala Harris the “antichrist” and held up a crucifix in front of the cheering crowd.

While former Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson introduced the Democrat, daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrant parents, in these terms: “a Samoan, a Malay, a former California prosecutor with a low IQ.”

Controversy surrounding Joe Biden’s response

The impact of this sequence is yet to be determined. The Puerto Rican diaspora is particularly present in the states of New York and Florida, but could be especially important in Pennsylvania, where two Puerto Rican speakers spoke on stage during a Donald Trump rally Tuesday night.

“I was going to vote Republican and that made me take a closer look at Harris’ plan,” Javier Torres Martínez, a 45-year-old Puerto Rican who lives near Miami, Florida, told AFP. “Before I was 100% convinced to vote for Trump and now I am 100% motivated to vote for Kamala Harris.”

Joe Biden, however, complicated the situation on Tuesday night. In question? A dig launched in response to Tony Hinchcliffe’s insult and in which he presumably attacks Donald Trump’s supporters.

“The only trash I see floating around here are his supporters,” said the Democratic president, drawing criticism from the Republican camp. Donald Trump’s campaign team immediately called on Kamala Harris “to repudiate the outrageous insult” uttered by Joe Biden.