Biden and Puerto Rico, another unforced error?
The insults to Puerto Rico in Trump’s mass bath in New York last Sunday threaten to complicate the Republican’s options in states like Pennsylvania, a state through which a good part of both candidates’ chances of victory pass and in which the percentage of voters of Puerto Rican origin is relevant. Hours after that clear unforced error by the Republican campaign, it has been counteracted by another failure, of which the consequences have yet to be seen, by President Joe Biden. “Just the other day, a speaker at your rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of trash. Well, let me tell you something. (…) The only trash I see floating around are your followers. Their demonization is unconscionable and un-American “It is totally contrary to everything we have done,” he said. Shortly after, a White House spokesperson had to clarify that the president was referring to “the rhetoric” used at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York.
By then, the Republican campaign had already sharpened his words. “He really doesn’t know what he said. It’s something terrible, terrible, but he really doesn’t know. I’m convinced that he likes me more than Kamala,” Trump slipped in reference to the vice president and Democratic candidate. Senator Marco Rubio also took advantage of it: “I hope his campaign is about to apologize for what he just said. We are not trash, we are patriots.”
