Republican Donald Trump led a headline-grabbing New York rally on Sunday with nonstop attacks on Kamala Harris, but Democrats sought to capitalize on crude insults from some of his allies’ opening speeches.
Several speakers at the 20,000-seat Madison Square Garden venue drew cheers with their barbs against Harris, Puerto Rico and Latinos in the final stretch of one of America’s closest ever White House races.
“America is for Americans and Americans only,” said one of Trump’s most hard-right advisors, Stephen Miller, to a sea of roaring supporters in trademark red “Make America Great Again” hats.
Earlier during the rally in the Democratic stronghold city, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe took aim at US territory Puerto Rico and birthrates among Latinos.
“There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” he said.
– ‘Not a punchline’ –
Harris seized on the attacks as she competes with the ex-president to win over Puerto Rican communities in the tight battleground states expected to decide the election.
“Puerto Ricans deserve a president who sees and invests in (their) strength,” Harris said in a clip published on social media along Hinchcliffe’s comments.
Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat, noted the state is home to almost half a million Puerto Ricans and nearly three quarters are able to vote.
He said in a post on X that they are “crucial” and are “not a punchline for a desperate joke”.
Ricky Martin, the Puerto Rican superstar with 18.6 million followers on Instagram, quickly shared a video of Harris’s appeal to Puerto Rican voters, along with a clip of Hinchcliffe’s disparaging remarks.
“This is what they think of us,” Martin wrote in Spanish. “Vote for @kamalaharris.”
Trump’s rally at “The World’s Most Famous Arena” included a surprise appearance by his wife Melania and backers like billionaire Elon Musk, who has personally hit the campaign trail for the ex-president.
However, the venue also hosted a far-right, pro-Hitler rally in 1939, complete with eagles, Nazi insignia and salutes — an association that has generated darker headlines.
“This is an iconic place for an iconic man, period,” said Trump fan Christine Randall, a Manhattan-based life coach, shrugging off the Nazi connection.
“End of story, no further discussion,” Randall told AFP.
“You’ve destroyed our country. We’re not going to take it anymore, Kamala, you’re fired. Get out. Get out. You’re fired,” Trump told the cheering crowd.
– Harris ‘boots on ground’ –
Harris, 60, charged through a packed day of campaigning in the biggest city in must-win Pennsylvania, including stops at a Black church and barbershop as well as a Puerto Rican restaurant.
“We must not wake up the day after the election and have any regrets,” Harris told a rally in Philadelphia.
“Let’s reach out to our family and our friends and our classmates and our neighbors, tell them about the stakes of this election and tell them about their power.”
Sunday’s visit was the vice president’s 14th trip to Pennsylvania since she jumped to the top of the ticket after President Joe Biden’s shock withdrawal in July.
“This is the closest and the best opportunity we have to have a female in office who happens to be a Black female,” Myrda Scott, from Philadelphia, told AFP at one of Harris’s rallies in the city.
Scott, a Black woman herself, added: “We’re all rallying around to make that happen.”
On Tuesday, Harris will hold a major rally in Washington near the White House in the park where Trump fired up his supporters before they stormed the US Capitol to try to overturn the 2020 election result.
With barely a week to go, Harris was leaving nothing to chance in Philadelphia, where she must run up her vote tally to win the ultimate battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Harris rolled up to Philly Cuts barber shop in the largely Black neighborhood of West Philadelphia to meet residents, before ducking into the African-American-themed Hakim’s Bookstore & Gift Shop.
It’s been a frantic pace in the waning days of a bitter presidential race that has seen both candidates use confrontational language, with Trump in particular deploying toxic attacks against Harris.
“She’s boots to the ground,” 43-year-old African-American woman Myrda Scott, who runs a financial firm, told AFP as she awaited Harris at a youth basketball rec center rally.
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