2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Emily Singer)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump held what was billed as a "news conference" Tuesday morning at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where reporters wondered if he'd apologize for the racist remarks made at his Madison Square Garden rally that labeled Puerto Rico as a " floating island of garbage ." But Trump never apologized. Instead, it was like Festivus came a few months early for the former president, who showed up more than an hour late and aired his usual grievances in a low-energy speech before finally defending his racist rally as a "love fest.
" "I don't think anybody has ever seen anything like what happened the other night at Madison Square Garden," Trump said . "The love, the love in that room. It was breathtaking.
And you could’ve filled it many, many times with the people who weren’t able to get in...
It was like a lovefest and it was my honor to be involved." x Trump: I don't think anybody has ever seen anything like what happened the other night at Madison Square Garden. The love in that room.
.. It was like a love fest and it was my honor to be involved.
pic.twitter.com/umW3VvUF3g — Acyn (@Acyn) October 29, 2024 Trump refused to apologize for the racist comments even before the news conference, telling ABC News’ Rachel Scott that he didn’t know the comedian and didn’t hear the joke.
"I don't know him, someone put him up there. I don't know who he is," Trump told Scott. Trump’s campaign is worried about the possible fallout from Sunday’s rally, which was meant to be his closing argument to voters but has instead turned into a public relations nightmare.
“Apparently the October surprise was a presidential campaign committing mass political suicide on stage at MSG,” Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump administration official, told Politico. Puerto Rican superstars and politicians have loudly denounced the racist joke that denigrated Puerto Rico, which has struggled to rebuild after Hurricane Maria practically wiped out the island’s infrastructure in 2017. Trump, who was in office at the time, also blocked aid from being sent to help the island recover, which Vice President Kamala Harris has been highlighting in the closing days of the campaign, along with the racist joke.
x x YouTube Video Aside from not apologizing for the racist joke, Trump also rattled out a laundry list of complaints. He spread lies about the state of early voting to try to sow seeds of doubt about the fairness of the upcoming election, whined that he was no longer running against President Joe Biden , admitted that the economy is actually good right now , and painted his devoid-from-reality and racist picture that the country is a violent hellhole taken over by immigrants . The speech was filled with so many lies that CNN cut away from it to debunk the nonsense coming out of Trump’s mouth while the event was in progress.
“We’re going to dip out of Donald Trump’s remarks there, he is making a number of false claims so we want to interrupt what he is saying for a few moments and go straight to Daniel Dale, our fact checker,” said anchor Jim Acosta. x CNN bails on Trump, citing his incessant lying pic.twitter.
com/Qr0A2ffSwM — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2024 Trump also never took a single question , meaning this was not a news conference at all but rather a low-energy rally for the fervent supporters in the room who clapped and cheered dutifully. “Trump's remarks at Mar-a-Lago this morning are emblematic of his other speeches in this farewell tour from campaigning: lower energy, less focused and running late,” NPR reporter Stephen Fowler wrote on X. Looking to volunteer to help get out the vote? Click here to view multiple ways you can help reach voters—textbanking, phonebanking, letters, postcards, parties, canvassing.
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