Trump’s Madison Square Garden event begins with crude jokes and denunciations of critics

Donald Trump finally has his moment at Madison Square Garden.

With just over a week until Election Day, the former president will take the stage Sunday at one of the country’s most famous venues, holding a rally in his hometown to deliver the closing message of his campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

The rally’s opening was a hodgepodge of Trumpism, with a lengthy clip from the 1970 film “Patton,” a painting of the American flag with Trump in front while “God Bless America” ​​blared over the speakers, and a booth . -a routine by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe that was full of lewd jokes, often invoking racist stereotypes about Latinos, Jews and blacks.

“I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island of trash in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Hinchcliffe, whose joke was immediately flagged by the campaign of Democrat Kamala Harris, who is vying with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states.

Several critics slammed Hillary Clinton, the Democrat Trump defeated eight years ago, for saying Sunday that Trump would “reenact” a pro-Nazi event at the Garden in February 1939. One of the speakers, radio host Sid Rosenberg, used profanity to denounce the former secretary of state.