Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin were among those showing support for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Sunday night after a comedian made a racist joke about Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s rally on Sunday.
At the rally, which was held at New York’s Madison Square Garden, stand-up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all of whom are key constituencies in the election, which is just nine days away.
“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe said during the rally.
Hinchcliffe’s joke was immediately criticized by Harris’ campaign as it competes with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states.
Bad Bunny, who hails from Puerto Rico and has 45.6 million followers on Instagram, responded by posting a Story to his account featuring a video of Harris criticizing Trump for his actions in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, which both hit the island in a span of two weeks, leaving devastation in its wake. Thousands of people were killed. A 2021 report by the housing department’s office of the inspector general found that the Trump administration delayed more than $20 billion in hurricane relief aid for Puerto Rico after the disaster.
On his IG Story, Bad Bunny featured a video that Harris had posted to X (formerly Twitter) earlier in the day, in which she says: “There is so much at stake in this election for Puerto Rican voters and for Puerto Rico,” she says in the video. “And this election is not just a choice between Donald Trump and me. It is a choice between two very different visions for our nation.”
He added a second clip of her video, a portion of which plays three times in his Story: “I will never forget what Donald Trump did, and what he did not do, when Puerto Rico needed a caring and a competent leader. He abandoned the island, tried to block aid after back-to-back devastating hurricanes and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults.”
The View co-host Ana Navarro applauded Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Martínez Ocasio, on X.
“Fuck around and find out,” she posted. “After Trump rally speaker calls Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”, #BadBunny weighs-in, sharing @KamalaHarris proposal for 🇵🇷 with his 45 MM followers.”
She ended with a message in Spanish that translated to: “Thanks, Benito. A thousand, a thousand thanks for defending your island and the dignity of your people.”
Lopez, who is Puerto Rican and boasts 250 million Instagram followers, also posted a portion of Harris’ video to her IG Story along with a screenshot of Harris’ plan for helping Puerto Rico.
Fellow Puerto Rican Martin, who has 18.6 million followers on Instagram, did the same, adding a clip of Hinchcliffe making his joke.
New York Congressman Ritchie Torres also weighed in on X: “As a Puerto Rican, I am tempted to call Hinchcliffe racist garbage but doing so would be an insult to garbage. When casting their ballots at the voting booth, Latinos should never forget the racism that Donald Trump seems all too willing to platform.”
Also during the rally, Hinchcliffe made a racist joke about a Black person in the audience, saying he had “carved watermelons” with the audience member.
Meanwhile, Democratic organization Battleground New York released a statement Sunday night about the rally, calling the speeches “a torrent of unhinged crazy, racism and xenophobia.”
“Whether it was targeting Puerto Rico with obscene hate, continuing to claim the 2020 election was stolen, or trying to lay the groundwork to say the same in 2024, this rally was an obscene display of unvarnished bigotry for millions to see,” the group said. “It’s time to turn the page on this era of politics that’s seen abortion bans, kooky conspiracy theories mainstreamed, and an endless stream of nonsense that does nothing to solve problems for working people.”
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