Donald Trump and his allies were scrambling on Monday to stem the fallout from a campaign rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden where one speaker called Puerto Rico a “floating pile of garbage” and another likened Kamala Harris to a prostitute with “pimp handlers”.
With just over a week to go until the US presidential election, the Trump campaign had billed Sunday’s rally at the iconic Manhattan venue as the Republican former president’s “closing argument” before an audience of thousands of adoring supporters.
But a series of racist, misogynistic and vulgar comments by warm-up acts overshadowed Trump’s stump speech and prompted his campaign and Republican allies to rush to distance themselves from the speakers in an attempt to protect the presidential candidate from any negative fallout.