Trump headlines Madison Square Garden rally declaring US an 'occupied country' amid racist warm-up a

Trump delivered a 78-minute closing-message speech at a Madison Square Garden rally in New York City, telling the crowd 'The United States is now an occupied country, but it will soon be an occupied country no longer' and claiming Kamala Harris had 'unleashed an army of migrant gangs who are waging a campaign of violence and terror against our citizens.' The undercard his campaign assembled drew broad condemnation: comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico 'a floating island of garbage' and made crude jokes about Latinos and Jews, and adviser Stephen Miller declared 'America is for Americans and Americans only.' The campaign said it had not anticipated the Puerto Rico joke, though The Bulwark reported staff had reviewed Hinchcliffe's prepared set. Commentators and historians compared the event to the 1939 German American Bund rally at the same venue, and the fallout — including endorsements of Harris by Bad Bunny, Ricky Martin, and Jennifer Lopez — was widely described as a potential October surprise among Puerto Rican voters in swing states.

“The United States is now an occupied country, but it will soon be an occupied country no longer.” Quote verified against source