{"id":579,"date":"2024-11-11T09:31:08","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T09:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/trump-struggles-to-deal-with-his-latest-problem-with-puerto-rico\/"},"modified":"2024-11-11T09:31:08","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T09:31:08","slug":"trump-struggles-to-deal-with-his-latest-problem-with-puerto-rico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-struggles-to-deal-with-his-latest-problem-with-puerto-rico\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump struggles to deal with his latest problem with Puerto Rico"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Puerto Ricans weren\u2019t the only targets<\/a> at Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s Sunday night event at Madison Square Garden<\/a>, but they\u2019re the ones causing the former president the biggest political headache in the final week of the 2024 race. <\/p>\n

The Republican held an event where the audience heard a warm-up speaker refer to Puerto Rico as an \u201cisland of garbage<\/a>,\u201d among other derogatory remarks about Latinos that were peddled at the gathering. The backlash<\/a> has been fierce, causing unease<\/a> among party officials.<\/p>\n

The chairman of the GOP in Puerto Rico announced he\u2019d withhold support<\/a> for Trump unless the former president apologized for Sunday\u2019s racism. At least for now, that\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n

For Trump, Step One was holding a hate-filled event<\/a>. Step Two was ignoring the controversy the day after it erupted. Step Three involved pretending that he hadn\u2019t headlined a hate-filled event, telling the public that he considered it a \u201clovefest<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

When these efforts didn\u2019t appear to help, the former president moved on to a dubious Step Four. The New York Times reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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In a moment that seemed highly choreographed \u2014 given the fallout from a comedian\u2019s offensive joke about Puerto Ricans at Trump\u2019s Madison Square Garden rally \u2014 a Puerto Rican woman [at a roundtable event held in Drexel Hill, Pa.] tells Trump that Puerto Ricans stand behind him. Trump thanks her and claims, implausibly, that no president has done more for Puerto Rico than he did.<\/p>\n

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In fact, the Republican spent<\/a> much of the day declaring<\/a>, \u201cI think no president\u2019s done more for Puerto Rico than I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t just ridiculous, it also created an opportunity to highlight his awful his record toward the island. A separate Times report<\/a> noted, for example, \u201cAs president, Mr. Trump fought bitterly with [Carmen Yul\u00edn Cruz, the former San Juan mayor] and other Puerto Rican leaders, and resisted sending billions of dollars in aid after the territory was ravaged by back-to-back hurricanes in 2017. He made angry comments on social media and tossed paper towels<\/a> at Puerto Ricans during a visit that few, if any, have forgotten. He even wondered privately if the United States could sell the island<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report added that the Republican Party\u2019s platform \u201cno longer mentions statehood for Puerto Rico, a position the party had held before Mr. Trump\u2019s relationship with the island soured.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of which helped set the stage for Step Five: feigning ignorance and pretending the controversy isn\u2019t real.<\/p>\n

Sitting down for his latest interview with Fox News\u2019 Sean Hannity, Trump said<\/a> of Tony Hinchcliffe, \u201cI have no idea who he is,\u201d and adding that \u201cthey\u201d were responsible for giving him a speaking slot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they\u2019ve done is taken somebody who has nothing to do with the party, has nothing to do with us, said something, and they try and make a big deal,\u201d Trump went on to tell Hannity<\/a>. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know who it is, I don\u2019t even know who put him in. And I can\u2019t imagine it\u2019s a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that sounds to you like wishful thinking, we\u2019re on the same page.<\/p>\n

It would\u2019ve been easy for the Republican candidate to denounce the racist rhetoric at his own event on Sunday. Trump also had the option of expressing regret and\/or taking some responsibility for the depraved rhetoric at his own rally.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s chosen a different, more Trumpian path.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Steve Benen<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of\u00a0MaddowBlog\u00a0and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Puerto Ricans weren\u2019t the only targets at Donald Trump\u2019s Sunday night event at Madison Square Garden, but they\u2019re the ones causing the former president the biggest political headache in the final week of the 2024 race. The Republican held an event where the audience heard a warm-up speaker refer to Puerto Rico as an \u201cisland […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}