Racist Remarks and Insulting the Base: Key Takeaways from Trump's MSG Rally | US elections 2024

1. Racist and rude comments

The rally was a safe place for Trump and the campaign to indulge their most vitriolic impulses: Speakers falsely said Kamala Harris was allowing migrants to “rape and kill” Americans or asked whether Harris was black or “Samoan-Malaysian.”

Trump's warm-up speakers seemed particularly emboldened to shoot Latinos and African Americans at the rally in an apparent attempt to copy the former president.

Tony Hinchcliffe, the host of the Kill Tony podcast, stirred up racist hostility against Latinos and African Americans from the start. Latinos “love having babies,” Hichcliffe said. “There is no taking off. They come in, just like they do in our country.”

“Right now there is literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe added.

Radio host Sid Rosenberg tended to attack Democrats by using ad hominem insults to describe Hillary Clinton – a villain for the Trump supporters who mocked her.

“Hillary Clinton. What a sick son of a bitch. The whole damn party. A bunch of degenerates. Lowlifes, Jew-haters and lowlifes. Every single one of them. Every single one of them,” Rosenberg said.

And Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who lost his spot in prime time after the network was sued for defamation for spreading false claims of election fraud in 2020, went after Kamala Harris.

“As the first low-IQ Samoan Malaysian and former California prosecutor ever elected president,” Carlson mistakenly said in a mocking tone about Harris' racial background. “No, she’s not impressive.”

2. Rhetoric against immigration

Trump himself stepped up his anti-immigration rhetoric, promising to enforce the death penalty for migrants who kill an American and that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

Trump's actual border plans are full of rhetoric but scant on detail. For example, he has promised mass deportations without saying what the logistics would be or how they would be financed. The Alien Enemies Act allows summary deportations of people from countries with which the U.S. is at war, has invaded the country or engaged in “predatory incursions” – but requires a connection to actions by a foreign government.

But Trump has noted to his advisers that his crowd seems most energetic when he talks about deporting illegal immigrants, and his speech kept returning to immigration even as he touched on other campaign messages.

3. Light on the economic agenda

Trump remained disciplined enough to abandon a new economic promise as he competes with Harris to increase Americans' disposable income: the creation of a new tax credit for family caregivers.

He also promised to halve energy prices and cut corporate tax rates for companies if re-elected.

Trump again held back on details of his economic agenda, saying changes to the tax code would require congressional approval and it is unclear whether Republicans will retain control of the House or win a majority in the Senate.