'More of the same': Harris blasts Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally

WASHINGTON − Vice President Kamala Harris accused Republican nominee Donald Trump of “fanning the fuel of trying to divide our country” after the former president’s grievance-filled New York campaign rally that included racist remarks from several speakers.

“Donald Trump's event in Madison Square Garden really highlighted a point that I've been making throughout this campaign,” Harris said Monday before boarding Air Force Two to head to Saginaw, Michigan.

“He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country, and it is not in any way something that will strengthen the American family, the American worker,” Harris said.

More:Harris says she'll take cognitive test, challenges Trump to take the same exam

Comedian Tony Hinchliffe, among the speakers at the Sunday night event, referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage,” and joked about a Black person in the crowd “carving watermelons.” He quipped that Latinos don't use birth control.

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Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson provided a made-up ethnicity for Harris in his remarks, calling her “Samoan-Malaysian” and a “low IQ former California prosecutor.” In his speech, businessman Grant Cardone said Harris has “pimp handlers.”

In Trump's remarks, the former president sparked chants of "send them back" as he talked about undocumented migrants and doubled down on his phrase "enemy from within" to describe his adversaries.

More:Trump vows to go after his enemies if elected. Meet two enforcers ready to carry that out

“When I say the enemy from within the other side goes crazy," Trump said. "They’ve done very bad things to this country, they are indeed the enemy from within."

The Trump campaign later tried to distance itself from Hinchliffe's joke about Puerto Rico.

"This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign," senior Trump advisor Danielle Alvarez said in a statement.

Sen. JD Vance, Trump's running-mate, downplayed the Puerto Rico insult, arguing that Harris focusing on it is "not the message of a winning campaign."

"I haven't seen the joke. Maybe it's a stupid, racist joke. Maybe it's not, " Vance said while campaigning in Wausa, Wisconsin. "But I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I’m so over it."

More:Trump faces backlash from Bad Bunny, Puerto Ricans amid fight for Latino vote

The remark came the same day Harris campaigned at Freddy & Tony's Restaurant, a Puerto Rican eatery and announced a policy plan aimed at that key Philadelphia constituency. The comment ignited a backlash among several well-known Puerto Ricans inducing Grammy-winning artists Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin.

"This is not new about him, by the way. What he did last night was not a discovery," Harris said. "It is just more of the same, and maybe more vivid than usual. Donald Trump spends full time trying to have Americans point the finger at each other."

The Harris campaign quickly seized on the Puerto Rico insult, turning a clip of Hinchliffe's joke into a 30-second television ad released Monday. Harris has worked to reach out to Puerto Rican voters, who form a large voting bloc in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

President Joe Biden called the the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden "simply embarrassing, beneath any president."

"But that's what we're getting used to," Biden said before casting his 2024 ballot in his hometown of Wilmington, Del. "That's why this election is so important."

Biden added: "You know, most of the presidential scholars I've spoken to talk about the single most consequential thing about a president is character. Character. He puts that in question every time he opens his mouth."

Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison.