Harris aides are increasingly confident, says the Times:
"As the presidential contest enters the final sprint, campaign aides and allies close to Vice President Kamala Harris are growing cautiously optimistic about her chances of victory, saying the race is shifting in her favor.
So we are a week or so out from the election and Trump Inc thought it would be a good time to disparage Puerto Ricans? What??? This is how Team Trump wanted to close out? I get it that the guy is a comedian, but this was a political rally and not this dudes stand up act at The Tropicana. Seriously, how does this help Trump in any way?
From The NY Times:
"Donald J. Trump and his allies are full of bravado over his chances of victory in the closing days of the 2024 campaign. But there are signs, publicly and privately, that the former president and his team are worried that their opponents’ descriptions of him as a racist and a fascist may be breaking through to segments of voters.
That anxiety was clear after Mr. Trump’s six-hour event at Madison Square Garden in New York City, where the inflammatory speeches on Sunday included an opening act by a comedian known for a history of racist jokes who derided Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage” and talked about Black people carving watermelons.
The backlash among Puerto Rican celebrities and performers was instantaneous across social media, prompting the Trump campaign to issue a rare defensive statement distancing themselves from offensive comments. In a tight race, any constituency could be decisive and the sizable Puerto Rican community in the battleground state of Pennsylvania was on the minds of Trump allies.
Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said in a statement that the Puerto Rico joke “does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
The Trump ethos has generally been to never apologize, never admit error and try to ignore controversy. Ms. Alvarez’s statement was a rare break from that tradition, reflecting a new concern that Mr. Trump risks reminding undecided voters of the dark tenor of his political movement in the closing stage of the 2024 race.
Some of Mr. Trump’s Republican allies, seeming to harbor similar misgivings, were quick to criticize the joke and the comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, who made it.
David Urban, an informal Trump adviser with long ties to Pennsylvania, where there are large numbers of Puerto Rican voters, posted on X: “I thought he was unfunny and unfortunately offended many of our friends from Puerto Rico,” adding the hashtag “#TrumpLovesPR.”
The pushback also came from officials in Florida, where Mr. Trump’s campaign is based and some of his advisers have spent their careers.
Senator Rick Scott of Florida posted on X on Sunday: “It’s not funny and it’s not true.” Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, of South Florida, condemned Mr. Hinchcliffe’s comments and said she was “disgusted,” adding that it did not reflect Republican values.
“Puerto Rico isn’t garbage, it’s home to fellow American citizens who have made tremendous contributions to our country,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida posted on X on Monday. But he also made a point to note that “those weren’t Trump’s words. They were jokes by an insult comic who offends.”
Asked to comment on Mr. Trump’s allies showing worry that some of the attacks are breaking through, the Trump campaign did not immediately respond.
But Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate, dismissed concerns. “Maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke, as you said,” he told reporters on Monday. “Maybe it’s not. I haven’t seen it.” But, he added, “we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America.”
Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist who has specialized in mobilizing Latino voters, asked publicly on Sunday for $30,000 in small donations to a PAC so he could send the video of the offensive comments to Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania.
By Monday morning, he had met the goal and had sent a blitz of 250,000 texts with 15 seconds of the comedian’s set disparaging the island."
And so on....
This is a VERY big thing on the RIGHT. Numerous R candidates are distancing themselves from it all over TV.
.
Trump surrogate, Shermichael Singleton, just called it an "incalculable mistake" on CNN. Then said, "I don't know of a single strategist in the country who would have advised the Trump campaign to do this."
.
They knew what the guy was going to say, and allowed it anyway, making it MUCH worse. They had edit control.
.
What a disastrous way to end a campaign. So stupid, so hateful.
Harris aides are increasingly confident, says the Times:
"As the presidential contest enters the final sprint, campaign aides and allies close to Vice President Kamala Harris are growing cautiously optimistic about her chances of victory, saying the race is shifting in her favor.
Top Democratic strategists are increasingly hopeful that the campaign’s attempts to cast former President Donald J. Trump as a fascist — paired with an expansive battleground-state operation and strength among female voters still energized by the end of federal abortion rights — will carry Ms. Harris to a narrow triumph. Even some close to Mr. Trump worry that the push to label him a budding dictator who has praised Hitler could move small but potentially meaningful numbers of persuadable voters.
Officials within the Harris campaign and people with whom they have shared candid assessments believe she remains in a solid position in the Northern “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, saying internal polling shows her slightly ahead in all three — though by as little as half a percentage point.
They think she remains competitive across the four Sun Belt battleground states. Arizona and North Carolina appear to be the toughest swing states for Ms. Harris, these Democrats said, and they feel better about Georgia and Nevada."
Throw as much shit as possible say the absurd, it's the illusion that trump is out there. So when they loose, it'll be their case that the election was rigged.
Its all in the game plan. Do the fake assassination, say the crazy shit....who cares
Hinchcliffe has a history of racist jokes and told the Puerto Rico joke the night before at a comedy club. It bombed but he said it would be received better the next night at the rally.
Also, the joke was on the teleprompter, so Trump staff either saw it or should have seen it.
Meanwhile, he also made a joke about black people carving watermelons.
This is what the guy DOES and the Trump people either knew or should have known what they were going to get.
…and woketard leftists got butt hurt about it. So they’ll demand that comedian get cancelled, and then call half the country “maggots”. Two weeks later they’ll wonder why they lost the election.
The dude called an entire island "a pile of garbage." Turns out it was pretty predictable. And that's OK with our little racist.
PS: MAGAts stands for MAGA transsexuals.
It's many Republicans that are freaking out about it. Unless Peter Navarro has suddenly become a "woketard?" smh
Could it put Florida in play? Hard to say. Will it offend just Puerto Ricans or all Hispanics? Who knows? Trump seems to be made of Teflon.