Oct. 28, 2024, 2:17 AM UTC
Former President Donald Trump delivered his standard lines on topics from immigration to the economy Sunday at a packed rally at Madison Square Garden, an event that was designed to be the start of his closing argument nine days out from Election Day at a venue off the battleground map that he has wanted to campaign at for years.
But Trump’s remarks in his hometown, New York City, which went for more than an hour, were overshadowed by comments made by warm-up speakers in the roughly five hours before his prime-time address. They included a comedian’s racist jokes about Latinos and Black Americans and were condemned by multiple Republican members of Congress, as well as speakers who used increasingly inflammatory language to describe Vice President Kamala Harris.
At the World’s Most Famous Arena and before one of his largest rally crowds of the cycle, Trump railed against opponents he sees as “the enemy from within,” described the media as “the enemy of the people,” referred to Harris’ “low IQ” and described her as a “vessel” for those aforementioned opponents, and said in a potential war with China the U.S. “would kick their ass.”
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Former President Donald Trump and Melania Trump take the stage at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
“It’s just this amorphous group of people, but they’re smart and they’re vicious, and we have to defeat them,” Trump said in explaining his use of “the enemy from within.”
“And when I say the enemy from within, the other side goes crazy. … They’ve done very bad things to this country. They are indeed the enemy from within. But this is who we’re fighting,” he continued.
It was the lesser-known speakers before Trump took the stage, however, who made big waves outside the arena.
Grant Cardone, a conservative influencer and investor, said Harris and “her pimp handlers will destroy our country” and raised his middle finger to the camera to show what message a Trump victory would send to “the elites.”
“It needs to be a landslide,” he said. “We need to slaughter these other people. We need to bring 100 million votes to Donald Trump.”
David Rem, who announced his candidacy for mayor of New York on stage, echoed a rallygoer who called Harris “the devil” and added that she is “the Antichrist.” Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson joked that Harris, who is of Black and Indian descent, would be “the first Samoan Malaysian low IQ, former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.”
Hulk Hogan waves an American flag in front of Trump supporters at Madison Square Garden.Angela Weiss / AFP – Getty Images
But no comments generated more attention than an opening routine from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who spoke early in the afternoon. His jokes included saying Latinos “love making babies” because “there’s no pulling out.