Former President Donald Trump on Saturday defended the comedian who called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage" during a high-profile campaign rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden.
During a telephone interview on Fox News' "Fox and Friends Weekend," the Republican presidential nominee accused "the Democrats" of unfairly making a "big deal" out of the racist joke told by insult comic Tony Hinchcliffe.
"Well, I guess somebody put on a comedian and he joked," Trump said, appearing to be unaware of the arrangements for his own rally. "He was a comedian. He joked. He mentioned Puerto Rico."
Trump claimed that "I haven't heard the joke," and called Hinchcliffe "a comedian that I have no idea who he is."
"He's a man that was put there by very good people and well-meaning people," Trump said. "He mentioned Puerto Rico and they made it like a big deal."
Trump also accused Democrats of exploiting "this one comedian telling one little joke early in the show when nobody had even started going into the arena, practically."
Shortly after Hinchcliffe's joke, Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez released a statement saying it didn't "reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign," and running mate JD Vance said Monday that anyone who was offended should "just take a chill pill."
Trump also said Saturday that "nobody's been better to Puerto Rico than me."
"I saved Puerto Rico when they had there some, some of the worst hurricanes. Really bad. I brought in the hospital ship, the Mercy," he said. "There's nobody, and Puerto Ricans will tell you, that nobody's done more for Puerto Rico than me."
Following 2017's Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico and killed an estimated 2,975 people, Trump visited the island and tossed rolls of paper towels into a crowd in San Juan, a stunt then-Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz called "terrible and abominable."
During the 2020 election, former Trump administration official Miles Taylor — who endorsed ultimate victor Joe Biden — also told MSNBC that Trump "said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico."
"Could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland?" Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, recalled Trump saying. "Because, in his words, Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor."
