Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’

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Democrats stepped up their attacks on Donald Trump on Monday, a day after a comedian opening a rally for the former president called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” a comment that drew wide condemnation and highlighted the rising power of a key Latino group in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

Vice President Kamala Harris described Trump’s rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden as “more vivid than usual” and said he “fans the fuel of hate” before she flew to Michigan for a campaign event. President Joe Biden called the rally “simply embarrassing.” In a rare move late Sunday, the Trump campaign distanced itself from the remarks on Puerto Rico made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe.

“The garbage he spoke about is polluting our elections and confirming just how little Donald Trump cares about Latinos specifically, about our Puerto Rican community,” Eddie Moran, mayor of Reading, said at a news conference with other Puerto Rican officials.

With just over a week before Election Day, the fallout underscores the importance of Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes and the last-minute efforts to court growing numbers of Hispanic voters, mostly from Puerto Rico, who have settled in cities west and north of Philadelphia.

Fernando Tormos-Aponte, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in Puerto Rican politics and electoral organizing, said the timing of the comments may spell trouble for the Trump campaign.

“When you combine the events that took place yesterday with other grievances that Puerto Ricans have, you really are not engaging in sound political strategy,” Tormos-Aponte said.

Trump did not mention the controversy during his first appearance of the day, at the National Faith Summit in Powder Springs, Georgia. The closest he came was when conservative activist Gary Bauer asked a question that included offhand praise for Trump turning Madison Square Garden “into MAGA Square Garden.”