Latino Democratic politicians on Tuesday forcefully denounced derisive comments about Puerto Rico made at a weekend rally for former President Donald Trump and urged Puerto Ricans to get family and friends in swing states to the polls on Nov. 5.
“To the people who take that, to that nasty rhetoric to the national stage, we say, ‘You’re not going to be there for very long, because we’re going to take you out,” state Rep. Lilian Jiménez of Chicago said at a news conference in Humboldt Park.
The news conference was called in response to a set by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a Madison Square Garden rally for Trump in which he said that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.”
It was cast as a joke, but U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez of Chicago said that Hinchcliffe’s words represented “exactly what Donald Trump and JD Vance and every one of them believe.”
“What would JD Vance say if someone said that about Middletown, Ohio?” she asked, referring to the Republican vice presidential candidate’s hometown.
Trump’s campaign has attempted to distance him from Hinchcliffe’s comments, and Trump told ABC News that he didn’t know the comedian. The former president was scheduled to speak in a predominantly Latino area of Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
At Tuesday’s news conference in the heart of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community, some Latino elected officials and other community members tied the rhetoric this weekend to what they see as generations of mistreatment from the American political establishment.
“We need to go talk to our Puerto Rican siblings in Pennsylvania and remind them how organized we are, and how to ensure that we exercise our civil duty by taking our proud Puerto Rican-ness to the ballot,” Ald. Jessie Fuentes, 26th, said.
Asked about Hinchcliffe’s controversial statements, the Illinois Republican Party referred to a Trump campaign statement that the joke didn’t reflect Trump’s views, and declined to comment further.
Some Republican elected officials in Illinois sought to deflect blame for Hinchcliffe’s language away from Trump.
“Blowback should go to the comedian,” GOP state Sen. Terri Bryant of Murphysboro said.
Bryant said the comment was inappropriate, “but that’s on the comedian, not on the Trump campaign.”
State Rep. Dan Caulkins of Decatur, a member of the conservative Illinois Freedom Caucus, argued that Hinchcliffe’s comment wasn’t “literal.”
“I don’t know that it was funny,” Caulkins said, while also contending the media response to Hinchcliffe’s statements has been overblown.
“This is a campaign season. It’s the last few days. Candidates are going to grasp at whatever they think they can use to bolster their position or their opportunities,” Caulkins said.
He labeled Democrats’ response “politics at its worst.”
The offices of House Republican Leader Tony McCombie of Savanna and Senate Republican Leader John Curran of Downers Grove didn’t return requests for comment Tuesday.
Former House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, who retired last year after more than two decades in the legislature and has been an outspoken critic of Trump, decried the rhetoric from Sunday’s rally and wondered if Trump is “running to lose or to win.”
“It’s just another reflection upon a person who is completely, I consider, unhinged,” Durkin said of Trump. “I don’t know what he’s trying to do. But he is a loose cannon and he should not be serving another term as president of the United States. And if that’s going to be a reflection of his new administration, heaven help us.”
Durkin said only that he wouldn’t be voting for Trump when asked how he’s casting his presidential ballot.
He acknowledged the rally rhetoric isn’t likely to change the minds of Trump supporters.
But given that they came at a lectern with Trump’s name on it, Democrats argued otherwise. Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat and surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris, on Monday speculated that the Madison Square Garden showing could turn some voters off from voting for Republicans at all.
“It was a shameful show of what the Republican Party has become and what Donald Trump represents,” Pritzker said during an event in Springfield. “We saw racism, sexism, over and over again by speakers for a couple of hours and, of course, directly by Donald Trump. So, I think this is, it should show America what is at stake in this election, and why people need to get out and vote.”
Gorner reported from Springfield.
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