Idiot Trump Has a Ridiculous New Defense for Racist Puerto Rico Joke

Despite the evidence, Donald Trump is still trying to convince voters that no one cared about the racist joke made about Puerto Rico at his Madison Square Garden rally.

During an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening, the Republican presidential nominee claimed that he has “really great relationships” with “Hispanics”—so much so that they shower him with physical affection every time he runs into them.

“Every time I go outside, I see somebody from Puerto Rico, they give me a hug and a kiss,” Trump said.

But in the same breath, Trump recalled the apparently fond memory of throwing paper towels to a crowd of pleading Puerto Ricans after the U.S. territory was devastated by Hurricane Maria, leaving the vast majority of the island without power, food, water, and medical aid.

“I got in trouble for that too, because we were having fun. We had a lot of people, and I was throwing paper towels to the back, they were all having fun,” Trump told Fox before complaining that the media negatively covered the stunt. (At the time, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz called Trump’s 17-minute meeting “abominable” and described him as the “miscommunicator-in-chief.”)

The comments are a continued effort by the Trump campaign to clean up the former president’s image after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe joked at Trump’s Manhattan campaign stop that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.”

“I don’t even know who put him in. And I can’t imagine it’s a big deal. I’ve done more for Puerto Rico than any president, I think that’s ever, that’s ever been president,” Trump told Fox on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Trump’s campaign is working overtime to separate the  former president’s image from the racist joke, which has drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum. Other Republicans have also spoken out about the gross insult, including Senator Rick Scott and Representative Maria Elvira Salazar.

During an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, Trump made the whole situation worse by outright denying knowing anything about the unsavory joke, telling the network that he hadn’t even heard the line and that he didn’t know the comedian before “someone put him up there.”

Trump’s failure to personally condemn Hinchcliffe’s comments has also cost him with Puerto Rican voters across the country—particularly in Pennsylvania, where Puerto Rico–connected nonpartisan groups are circulating a letter urging members to vote against Trump.

Only one week from Election Day, Republicans’ closing message is that they plan to take away people’s health care, specifically the Affordable Care Act, if the party retains control of the House.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told the crowd at a rally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Monday that “health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda.”

“When I say we’re going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things still on the table,” Johnson said at the rally meant to be in support of Republican Representative Ryan Mackenzie.

One person at the rally, in a reference to the health care bill passed by Democrats under President Obama, asked Johnson, “No Obamacare?”

“No Obamacare,” Johnson replied, rolling his eyes according to NBC News. “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”

“If you take government bureaucrats out of the health care equation and you have doctor-patient relationships, it’s better for everybody. More efficient, more effective,” Johnson added. “That’s the free market. Trump’s going to be for the free market.”

Johnson later promised to take a “blowtorch to the regulatory state.”

Johnson’s promise to ax Obamacare isn’t an offhand remark. Earlier this month, Senator Tom Cotton also promised that if Donald Trump wins the election and the GOP takes control of the Senate, Republicans could “make health care more affordable, more tailored and more personalized than the one-size-fits-all option.”

During his four years as president, Trump tried and failed to repeal the ACA, even though the GOP controlled the House and the Senate for two years. During his presidential debate with Kamala Harris last month, Trump reiterated his desire to get rid of the health care law, but when pressed, said he only had “concepts of a plan.”

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has elaborated on the Trump administration’s current plan, which is to undo much of the ACA’s framework, including its prohibition on health insurance companies’ ability to charge more for preexisting conditions. Johnson’s and Cotton’s comments reveal that he has allies among the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. The question is whether voters want to elect Trump and allow the GOP to reverse the health care reforms of the previous decade.

Robert F. Kennedy’s bewildering campaign has shot itself in the foot for the umpteenth time.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled 8-1 against RFK Jr.’s request to be removed from presidential ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin. Justice Neil Gorsuch was the only dissenting vote.

The third-party spoiler turned Trump advocate has been pathetically attempting to help the former president by removing his name from swing state ballots, while remaining on the ballot elsewhere. But even the Supreme Court has had enough of the stunt.

Kennedy’s lawyers tried to argue that his name remaining on the ballot was “in violation of his First Amendment rights,” and that his recent advocacy of former President Trump was being “compromised.” Wisconsin, however, argued that the request would require absurd tasks like handcrafting and placing “millions of stickers.”

Michigan too warned that early voting is already underway and it would be impossible to reprint and redistribute ballots just one week before the election. Michigan reported that over 1.5 million voters have already returned absentee ballots with Kennedy’s name as a voting option, and 263,000 people have voted early.

The court agreed—it was far too late. In two separate orders, the Supreme Court rejected RFK Jr.’s emergency requests.

Kennedy remaining on the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin is all but guaranteed to take more voters from Trump than from Harris in those crucial swing states.

This story has been updated.

Team Trump continues to reveal that the only thing on their minds for their first 100 days in office will be revenge.

Speaking with Vaughn Hillyard at Donald Trump’s incendiary Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, billionaire CEO and co-chair of Trump’s transition team Howard Lutnick discussed what went wrong with Trump’s first Cabinet and how he’ll ensure that his next is “the best of the best.”

Lutnick also dismissed Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly, former Defense Secretary James Mattis, and former Vice President Mike Pence, each of whom have deemed Trump an authoritarian threat, as merely “disgruntled former employees.”

“[Trump] thought they were generals. He should’ve realized they were Democrat generals. They moved against him. Think about this—Mattis, Kelly, and [former Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson met every other morning to try to keep Donald Trump away from what they wanted to do.… That’s treason, it’s just wrong.”

Casually suggesting that critics of the former president should be charged with treason is yet another massive red flag that has become all too common within the Trump campaign. And while it’s beside the point, none of the aforementioned “disgruntled former employees” are Democrats. Mattis is unaffiliated with a party, Kelly, is a registered independent, and Tillerson is a lifelong Republican.

Lutnick’s threat aligns with the numerous other threats of prosecution that Trump has levied throughout his campaign. In recent weeks, he has begun warning that he’ll use the military to go after the “enemy within,” even naming targets he has in mind. And while some Trump supporters think that this is all just talk, others, like Lutnick, are taking Trump’s words and running with them.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was dealt a setback in his efforts to ban TV advertisements for a state ballot initiative expanding abortion rights.

A federal judge, Mark Walker, on Tuesday extended a temporary restraining order that blocks the state government from taking action against the ads for 14 days or until he rules on his initial preliminary injunction, likely delaying his decision until after Election Day on November 5, when the initiative will be decided by Florida voters.

DeSantis, through lawyers at the Florida Department of Health, has threatened to charge TV stations that run the ads, sending out cease and desist letters to them after the stations started running the commercials earlier this month. Brian Barnes, a lawyer for the department, said in federal court Tuesday prior to Walker’s ruling that one of the ads was confusing and could stop mothers from seeking emergency care.

Florida currently bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The ballot initiative, Amendment 4, would increase access to abortion until fetal viability, typically considered to be around 24 weeks. DeSantis’s decision to go after the TV stations that have run ads supporting the amendment has already led to backlash from within the state government, with one lawyer in the Department of Health, John Wilson, resigning over DeSantis’s authoritarian tactics.

“A man is nothing without his conscience,” Wilson wrote in his letter.

DeSantis has also used other state powers to fight against the ballot initiative, using his official X account to spread misinformation, even as two hurricanes raged through Florida. The state has also sent police officers to the homes of people who signed a petition supporting the ballot initiative, which DeSantis has defended by invoking conservative fears of voter fraud. But, as Walker ruled Tuesday, there are constitutional lines the governor can’t cross.