Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin were among those who showed support for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Sunday night after a comedian made a racist joke about Puerto Rico at Donald Trump's rally on Sunday.
At the rally, held in New York's Madison Square Garden, stand-up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and blacks, all key voters in the election, which is just nine days away.
“I don't know if you know this, but right now there's literally a floating island of trash in the middle of the ocean. I think it's called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe said at the rally.
Hinchcliffe's line was immediately criticized by Harris' campaign as it competes with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states.
Bad Bunny, who hails from Puerto Rico and has 45.6 million followers on Instagram, responded by posting a story on his account featuring a video of Harris criticizing Trump for his actions following Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, which they both hit the island. in the space of two weeks, leaving devastation in its wake. Thousands of people were killed. A 2021 report from the Housing Department's Office of the Inspector General found that the Trump administration delayed more than $20 billion in hurricane relief aid to Puerto Rico after the disaster.
On his IG Story, Bad Bunny featured a video that Harris had posted on X (formerly Twitter) earlier in the day, in which he says, “There's so much at stake in this election for Puerto Rican voters and for Puerto Rico “he says in the video. “And this election is not just a choice between me and Donald Trump. It's a choice between two very different visions for our nation.”
He added a second clip from his video, a portion of which plays three times in his Story: “I will never forget what Donald Trump did, and what he didn't do, when Puerto Rico needed a caring, competent leader. He abandoned the island, tried to block aid after consecutive devastating hurricanes, and offered nothing but paper towels and insults.”
The view co-host Ana Navarro applauded Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Martínez Ocasio, on X.
“Fuck it and find out,” he posted. “After Trump rally speaker calls Puerto Rico a 'floating island of garbage,' #BadBunny weighs in, sharing @KamalaHarris' proposal for 🇵🇷 with her 45MM followers.”
He concluded with a message in Spanish that translated to: “Thank you, Benito. Many, many thanks for defending your island and the dignity of your people.”
Lopez, who is Puerto Rican and boasts 250 million Instagram followers, also posted a portion of Harris' video to her IG Story along with a screenshot of Harris' plan to help Puerto Rico.
Fellow Puerto Rican Martin, who has 18.6 million Instagram followers, did the same, adding a clip of Hinchcliffe doing his joke.
New York Congressman Ritchie Torres also weighed in on X: “As a Puerto Rican, I'm tempted to call Hinchcliffe racist trash, but to do so would be an insult to trash. When voting in the voting booth, Latinos should never forget the racism that Donald Trump seems all too willing to support.”
Also at the rally, Hinchcliffe made a racist joke about a black person in the audience, saying he had been “carving watermelons” with the audience member.
Meanwhile, the Democratic organization Battleground New York released a statement Sunday evening about the rally, calling the speeches “a torrent of insanity, racism and xenophobia.”
“Whether targeting Puerto Rico with obscene hatred, continuing to claim that the 2020 election was stolen, or trying to lay the groundwork to say the same in 2024, this rally was an obscene display of pure bigotry before to millions of people,” the group said. he said. “It's time to turn the page in this political era that has seen abortion bans, the mainstreaming of outlandish conspiracy theories and an endless stream of nonsense that does nothing to solve working people's problems.”