Donald Trump attempted to put the controversy of his Madison Square Garden rally behind him on Tuesday by using one of his favorite tactics: misdirection.
Trump almost completely ignored the racist jokes and ensuing controversy of his Sunday rally by focusing the spotlight on women who had been allegedly killed by undocumented immigrants.
He spoke for roughly an hour on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago, where he delivered a stump speech with a slight twist, introducing the mothers of three girls to share testimonials praising Trump and decrying Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
It was only in the final minutes of his press conference — in which he took no questions — that Trump indirectly addressed the Madison Square Garden rally, where speakers called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” derisively mentioned Harris and her “pimp handlers” and said Latinos “love making babies” and “don’t pull out.”
“They come inside, just like they did to our country,” Tony Hinchcliffe, host of the show “Kill Tony,” said.
According to Trump, however, the rally was “breathtaking” and “beautiful.”
“It was like a lovefest, an absolute lovefest, and it was my honor to be involved,” Trump said.
Trump also lambasted the comparisons of his event to a 1939 Nazi rally held in the original Madison Square Garden.
“How terrible to say,” he concluded.
Trump opened his press conference with a narrated video from the mother of Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl who was killed in June, allegedly by undocumented men from Venezuela. Then Tammy Nobles, the mother of Kayla Hamilton, stepped onstage. Hamilton was killed in 2022 in Aberdeen, Maryland; an undocumented 17-year-old with ties to MS-13 was charged for her murder.
“The Biden-Harris administration did not do their job,” Nobles said. “If they would have done their job, made that one phone call to El Salvador, my daughter would still be alive today.”
Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Sgt. Nicole Gee, spoke next. Gee was killed at Abbey Gate during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“President Trump shows up, he reaches out and he can fix our country. And we can all heal together,” Shamblin said.
The scene was reminiscent of Trump’s strategy following the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in 2016, in which Trump was caught on camera saying he grabs women “by the pussy.” Trump showed up to a debate with Hillary Clinton a couple days later with women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct and hosted a press conference with the women a couple hours before the debate.
But this press conference on Tuesday was a little different; it wasn’t all testimonials. After Nobles spoke, Trump announced a new policy to seize assets from criminal gangs and drug cartels to provide restitution for victims of migrant crime.
Before the press conference, Trump told ABC News’ Rachel Scott that he didn’t know Hinchcliffe and hadn’t heard his jokes.
“I don’t know him, someone put him up there,” he said. “I don’t know who he is.”
The Trump campaign was also quick to distance itself from the Puerto Rico “joke,” as senior adviser Danielle Alvarez called it. But Trump and his campaign didn’t disavow all the comments that speakers made Sunday night, even though the outside reaction from voters — including many elected Republicans — has been outrage.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a close ally of Trump’s, condemned the Puerto Rico comment, calling it “not funny and not true.” (Scott is in a contested race to keep his Senate seat, and Florida has a large population of Puerto Rican voters.) His Florida colleague Sen. Marco Rubio also said, “Puerto Rico isn’t garbage, it’s home to fellow American citizens who have made tremendous contributions to our country.” And Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida said she was “disgusted,” adding that the rhetoric “does not reflect GOP values.”
“Puerto Rico sent 48,000+ soldiers to Vietnam, with over 345 Purple Hearts awarded. This bravery deserves respect,” she tweeted. “Educate yourself!”
Trump, of course, is likely to win Florida whether he rebukes the racist jokes or not. But Pennsylvania, the lynchpin of the presidential campaign, has about 500,000 Puerto Rican voters. And some are very unhappy.
Later Tuesday, Trump is set to visit Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he’s expected to more directly address the controversy. Allentown is home to one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in Pennsylvania, and the city closed its schools on Tuesday “out of an abundance of caution.”
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Ben T.N. Mause is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.