Donald Trump has said his rally in New York City on Sunday was an “absolute lovefest”, ignoring bipartisan calls that he personally apologise after a comedian’s joke at the event caused widespread offence.
The Republican White House nominee said it was “an honour to be involved” in the Madison Square Garden rally, though he distanced himself from the stand-up comic who described Puerto Rico during a routine as “an island of garbage”.
Opinion polls suggest Trump and his Democratic rival, US Vice-President Kamala Harris, are neck-and-neck with just one week to go until the 5 November election.
Both are scrambling to woo Latino voters in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, home to more than 470,000 Puerto Ricans.
On Tuesday night, Trump is campaigning in the heavily Latino town of Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Some members of the Puerto Rican diaspora in the US have expressed outrage at Tony Hinchliffe’s routine. A number of prominent Puerto Ricans – including Trump allies – have urged the Republican candidate to publicly disavow the joke.
Among them was Angel Cintron, president of Puerto Rico’s Republican Party, who was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying it was “disgraceful, ignorant and totally reprehensible”.
In an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, Trump distanced himself from Hinchcliffe.
“I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is,” he said.
Speaking at his resort in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, Trump insisted the rally was an “absolute lovefest”.
“The love in that room. It was breathtaking,” he added.
Trump’s allies have hit back at Democrats, accusing actor George Lopez of making an insensitive joke about Mexicans as he spoke at a Kamala Harris rally in Arizona over the weekend.
Also over the weekend, Harris unveiled a new policy platform for Puerto Rico, promising economic development and improved disaster relief.
She accused Trump of having “abandoned and insulted” the island during Hurricane Maria in 2017.
The Trump campaign retorted that his administration rebuilt the US territory’s infrastructure after the storm, awarding billions of dollars in grant funding to the island.
At another event in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, Trump told a Puerto Rican voter that his administration “helped you through a lot of bad storms”.
“I think no president’s done more for Puerto Rico than I have,” he said.
Seeking to put the controversy behind him, the Republican assailed Harris on the border and inflation, arguing that “on issue after issue, she broke it” and “I’m going to fix it and fix it very fast”.
