Puerto Rican celebrities weigh in after Trump rally speaker comments

A growing wave of Puerto Ricans are voicing support for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign following racist comments at Donald Trump’s Sunday rally in New York.

On Sunday, Harris received an endorsement from Bad Bunny, who was born in the Almirante Sur barrio of Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, and is viewed as a de facto political icon among young Puerto Ricans and Latinos across the country. The artist is known for his Puerto Rican pride, pushing progressive ideology and for speaking out on a range of social issues including gender norms. He hadn’t yet endorsed a presidential candidate, only encouraging his fans to vote.

That all changed Sunday when he shared Harris’ official campaign video targeting Puerto Rican audiences to his Instagram stories.

» READ MORE: Puerto Rican leaders in Philadelphia slam Trump campaign for racist remarks

“There’s so much at stake in the election for Puerto Rican voters and for Puerto Rico,” Harris says in the campaign video that Bad Bunny shared with his 45 million Instagram followers. The artist, whose legal name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, confirmed the repost was an endorsement through his team. He shared the video about two hours after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe disparaged Puerto Rico at Trump’s rally.

“I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he did not do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and a competent leader,” Harris said in the video. “He abandoned the island, tried to block aid after back-to-back devastating hurricanes and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults.”

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made insulting remarks about Puerto Rico at Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden Sunday, calling the U.S. territory a “floating island of garbage,” and making other racist claims about Latinos, Jewish and Black people.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), who is Puerto Rican and the youngest woman and Latina to serve in Congress, was running a Twitch live-stream with Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, when the pair responded to Hinchcliffe’s comments. They said they hoped Puerto Ricans nationwide heard Hinchcliffe’s comments and felt compelled to vote.

Hinchcliffe has since responded, defending his comments and adding that Ocasio-Cortez and Walz have “no sense of humor.”

Trump did not condemn Hinchcliffe’s remarks at the rally when he took the stage after the comedian but later his campaign distanced themselves from Hinchcliffe’s comments. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement.

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Hinchcliffe, raised in Youngstown, Ohio, is a stand-up comedian who specializes in the roast style, in which comedians take the podium to needle a celebrity victim with personal and often tasteless jokes. He has written and appeared on eight Comedy Central Roasts, including ones for Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady.

He had a Netflix special in 2016 — Tony Hinchcliffe: One Shot — which was filmed in one continuous take. But he’s perhaps most famous for hosting the Kill Tony podcast since 2013, which involves both professional and amateur comedians performing for a panel of judges for 60 seconds and then enduring their criticisms.

He began opening for comics like Joe Rogan, who did a three-hour interview with Trump on his podcast last week, and Jeff Ross and is credited with writing Martha Stewart’s raunchy zingers for a roast of Justin Bieber.

He has faced backlash before, especially after he used a racial slur in 2021 about fellow comedian and Asian American Peng Dang during a gig in Austin, Texas. Hinchcliffe was dropped by his talent agency, WME, and several of his scheduled gigs were canceled. He never apologized.

“I knew that what I had done was not wrong. It wasn’t even the worst thing I did that week,” he told Variety earlier this year. “It was so dumbfounding to me because it was a joke, and my stance is that comedians should never apologize for a joke, should never stop working if everyone comes after them and should never slow down.”

In the aftermath of comedian Hinchcliffe’s comments, the Trump campaign attempted to backtrack.

“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the campaign, said in a statement to news outlets.

Harris called Trump’s rally “more of the same, and maybe more vivid than usual.”

“He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself, and on dividing our country,” Harris told reporters at Join Base Andrews Monday ahead of a trip to Michigan. “That’s why people are exhausted with him.”

“If he were elected, on day one he’s going to be sitting in the Oval Office working on his enemies list,” Harris added “On day one, if I’m elected president United States, which I fully intend to be, I will be working on behalf of the American people on my to-do list.”

In response to Hinchcliffe’s remarks, Harris pointed to her own commitment to help improve the island’s electrical grid and improve economic opportunity for its residents, which she announced Sunday while campaigning in Philadelphia.

Harris also called out Trump’s own language on immigration, where the former president has called the U.S. a “garbage can” and compared undocumented immigrants and migrants to trash.

“Those are the words he has used,” Harris said.

Following Bad Bunny’s lead, singers Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin — who are also well known for taking pride in their Puerto Rican heritage — reposted the same video from the Harris campaign.

“Vote for Kamala Harris,” Martin wrote in an additional post, also including a graphic that said “Harris will build an opportunity economy for Puerto Rico.”

Lopez also shared the Harris campaign’s messaging, encouraging her 250 million followers to vote for the current vice president.

On Monday morning, The View’s Sunny Hostin, who is Puerto Rican, addressed Trump’s comments during her opening monologue.

“This Puerto Rican has something to say about the island that I love, where my family is from,” she said. “Puerto Rico is trash? We are Americans, Donald Trump. We volunteer disproportionately high in the military while you have bone spurs … and we vote.”

Additional artists including singers Luis Fonsi and Marc Anthony have also voiced their support for Harris.

Bad Bunny’s support came at the same time Harris was campaigning in Philadelphia, which has the second-highest Puerto Rican population among cities in the continental U.S. Harris stopped at Freddy & Tony’s, the popular Puerto Rican restaurant in the Fairhill neighborhood. While there, supporters chanted “¡Sí se puede!” as Harris outlined her plans for Puerto Rico’s economic success.

Staff writer Rob Tornoe and the Associated Press contributed to this article.