Trump holds rally in Pennsylvania city with Latino-majority population

Trump holds rally in Pennsylvania city with Latino-majority population
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening returned to a Hispanic-majority town in eastern Pennsylvania after a comedian at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden over the weekend sparked controversy by making racist jokes about Latinos, including calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

Trump did not address the comedian’s controversial remarks — but did seize on comments President Joe Biden made on Tuesday when, criticizing the remarks about Puerto Rico, Biden used wording that seemed to refer to Trump supporters as “garbage.”

Toward the end of the rally, Trump invited Sen. Marco Rubio to the stage, who broke the news of Biden’s comments to Trump and the crowd.

Trump recalled Hillary Clinton’s controversial “basket of deplorables” line in 2016.

“She said ‘deplorable.’ That didn’t work out,” Trump said. “‘Garbage,’ I think is worse.”

Trump’s rally took place in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a city of more than 125,000 people where the Hispanic population makes up 55% of the total, according to the U.S. Census data, with much of that number being Puerto Ricans.

His second campaign stop of the day in Pennsylvania — after a roundtable in Drexel Hill, where the population is overwhelmingly white — the Allentown visit was an opportunity for the former president to court Hispanics, and more specifically Puerto Ricans, after Hispanic groups on both sides of the aisle called the racist jokes made at the New York rally “derogatory,” “offensive,” and “disrespectful.”

Early on in his remarks, Trump made no mention of the controversy but did refer to his Madison Square Garden rally, calling it “the greatest evening anyone has seen politically,” adding, “The love was unbelievable.”

During his Pennsylvania event, Trump touted his support from Latinos, including an endorsement from Puerto Rico’s “Shadow Senator” Zoraida Buxo, who holds a position that advocates for statehood for the territory.

“Nobody loves our Latino community and our Puerto Rican community more than I do,” Trump said.

Cheers for mass deportation plan

Trump’s rally in Allentown came at the same time Vice President Kamala Harris was giving a speech from the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., making what her campaign has characterized as her “closing argument” in the race.

Trump received his largest applause of the evening when he said, if elected, he would carry out mass deportations of people in the U.S. illegally beginning on the first day of his administration.

“On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history,” he said. “We’re going to get them out. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell out of our country.”

As the crowd gave an overwhelming ovation, Trump said “I am hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”

The crowd then chanted, “USA!”

Controversial ‘garbage’ remarks

The comments at the Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday were made by controversial comedian Tony Hinchcliffe during pre-programming earlier Sunday afternoon, including explicit comments about how Latinos “love making babies.”

“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe said on stage to a crowd of nearly 20,000 Sunday night, after the former president himself the previous day called the United States a “garbage can for the world.”

Hinchcliffe, instead of apologizing for his comments, attacked his critics as lacking a sense of humor and accused them of taking the joke out of context to “make it seem racist.”

The former president denied knowing the comedian on Tuesday, telling ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott: “I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is.”

Trump also insisted he didn’t hear any of the comments, even as they’ve been played on television and written about extensively. When asked what he made of them, he did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn’t hear the comments.

Trump’s campaign has also tried to distance itself from comedian Hinchcliffe’s comments, saying they don’t reflect their views.

Several Republicans have come out against the jokes, including the chair Republican Party of Puerto Rico, Angel Cintrón, who called Hinchcliffe’s comments “unfortunate, ignorant, and entirely reprehensible,” as well as “racist.”

Residents of Puerto Rico, as a U.S. territory, do not vote for president in the general election, but the Republican Party of Puerto Rico held a primary in April as part of the Republican presidential nominating process. Donald Trump won the primary and netted the territory’s delegates.

Puerto Ricans living in the United States, however, make up the largest Hispanic group in seven states across the country, including in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, according to the U.S. Census data.

In Pennsylvania, where President Joe Biden won in 2020 by just over 81,000 votes, 3.7% of the state’s total population, or roughly 486,000 people, were of Puerto Rican origin. Pennsylvania is again expected to be an extremely tight race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, with Trump ahead of Harris by just 0.2% according to 538’s polling average as of Oct. 29.

Overall, Pennsylvania’s eligible Latino voter population has more than doubled since 2000, from 206,000 to 620,000 in 2023, according to WNTM’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau figures.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

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Justice Clarence Thomas faces new recusal demand after wife’s alleged message to conservative group
Justice Clarence Thomas faces new recusal demand after wife’s alleged message to conservative group
Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia Thomas arrive at the Heritage Foundation, Oct. 21, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

(WASHINGTON) — An alleged private message from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni to the leader of First Liberty Institute, which describes itself as the nation’s largest religious liberty organization, has triggered a wave of criticism from top Democrats, including a new call for the justice to recuse himself from future cases involving that organization.

First Liberty frequently petitions the high court and is behind a number of landmark conservative victories, including those protecting the ability of public school teachers to pray on the job; helping families obtain state funding to attend religious schools; and, forcing private employers to be more accommodating of religious observance.

On a late July conference call with supporters, according to a recording obtained by ProPublica, First Liberty CEO Kelly Shackelford is heard reading aloud an email from Ginni Thomas cheering on the group’s efforts to oppose a White House push to legislate Supreme Court term limits and an enforceable ethics code, prompted in part by controversy last year over her husband’s previously undisclosed financial ties and luxury travel with a GOP billionaire.

“YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES,” Ginni Thomas apparently wrote to First Liberty head Kelly Shackelford, according to ProPublica. “CAN I JUST TELL YOU, THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH.”

Critics said the message suggests Clarence and Ginni Thomas are beholden to First Liberty and benefit directly from its advocacy.

“The reported comments by Ginni Thomas are deeply problematic,” said Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a statement Monday. “She’s testified before Congress that she and Justice Thomas do not discuss each other’s work. That defense now rings hollow. Whether she’s inflating her knowledge of judges’ views on ethics reform or telling the truth, her apparent comments on behalf of judicial officers create a clear appearance of impropriety for Justice Thomas.”

Durbin, who has previously called on Thomas to sit out cases stemming from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot because of his wife’s activism, newly demanded the senior conservative justice also recuse himself from future cases involving First Liberty.

The couple did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment. The justice has previously declined to address Democrats’ demands for recusal. First Liberty Institute does not currently have an active case under consideration by the Supreme Court.

Ginni Thomas and the couple’s Republican allies believe Justice Thomas has been the target of a left-wing smear campaign aimed at undermining the conservative-majority court’s credibility. They oppose changes to the Supreme Court’s structure and function and insist the institution must remain insulated from lawmaker meddling.

“People in the progressive, extreme left, upset by just a few cases,” want to change the Court to “really destroy the court, the Supreme Court,” Shackelford says in the recording.

Two members of the court this summer — Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — publicly came out in favor of adopting an enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance with the ethics code. Chief Justice John Roberts opposes such a step on constitutional grounds but said publicly last year the matter should be studied. His position has not changed.

“The path forward is clear: Chief Justice Roberts can use his existing power to implement binding ethics reforms,” Durbin said. “Until he does, I will continue pushing to pass our [Supreme Court Ethics, Reform and Transparency] Act and deliver the ethics reforms that the American people—and our democracy—demand.” 

The measure cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2023 but has not yet received a vote by the full Senate.

While Justice Thomas signed on to the court’s ethics code in late 2023 — which says a justice must avoid the mere appearance of a conflict of interest — it does not apply to spouses, who are not forbidden from engaging in political activity as private citizens. Ginni Thomas has spent decades publicly advocating for conservative causes and was a high-profile supporter of the “Stop the Steal” effort to overturn results of the 2020 presidential election.

Some legal scholars have pointed out that Ginni Thomas was taking a position on court-related legislation long shared — and publicly expressed — by members of the court from both ends of the ideological spectrum.

Neither the recording nor Ginni Thomas’ email has been independently obtained by ABC News.

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Jimmy Carter casts ballot in 2024 election
Jimmy Carter casts ballot in 2024 election
Scott Cunningham/Getty Images

(ATLANTA) Former President Jimmy Carter has voted in the 2024 election, the Carter Center confirmed Wednesday.

Carter, the oldest living president, voted by mail on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Carter Center.

Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, told ABC News earlier this week that the former president planned on voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in the “next couple of days.”

“It’s going to be the next couple days; the absentee ballots have gone out,” Jason Carter said.

Carter recently celebrated his 100th birthday. As he neared the milestone, his family said he was trying to live until he could vote for Harris.

Carter entered hospice care in early 2023 amid health challenges. Last year, he made a rare public appearance when he attended a memorial service for his late wife, Rosalynn Carter.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was the first to report the news of Carter’s vote.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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Trump proposes eliminating personal income taxes. How would that work?
Trump proposes eliminating personal income taxes. How would that work?
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — In recent campaign speeches, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly floated an eye-catching idea: the elimination of individual income taxes.

The proposal follows a string of other tax cuts put forward by Trump, including the removal of taxes on car-loan payments, social security benefits and servers’ tips. But a potential elimination of personal income taxes for all Americans goes much further.

When podcast host Joe Rogan asked Trump last week whether he was serious about the new plan, Trump said, “Yeah, sure, why not?”

The U.S. would pay for the lost tax revenue with far-reaching tariffs, Trump said.

“We will not allow the enemy to come in and take our jobs and take our factories and take our workers and take our families, unless they pay a big price — and the big price is tariffs,” Trump added.

The individual income tax currently accounts for roughly half of the $5 trillion in revenue that the federal government brings in each year.

It is unclear whether Trump’s proposal would also include the elimination of payroll taxes and corporate income taxes. Those duties account for another 40% of U.S. tax revenue, according to the Tax Policy Center.

“Even in its smallest form, it would be a pretty substantial change from current policy,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told ABC News.

But he acknowledged that the details about how that proposal would actually work have been scarce. “We don’t have a full proposal,” Goldwein said.

In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the Trump campaign referenced the tax cuts enacted during his first term. But the campaign did not comment directly on his newer proposal of eliminating the individual income tax.

“President Trump passed the largest tax CUTS for working families in history and will make them permanent when he is back in the White House in addition to ending taxes on tips for service workers and ending taxes on Social Security for our seniors,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, told ABC News.

It would be all but impossible to make up for the lost revenue with increased tariffs, experts told ABC News.

On the campaign trail, Trump has promised a sharp escalation of tariffs during his first term. He has proposed tariffs of between 60% and 100% on Chinese goods.

Envisioning a far-reaching policy, Trump has proposed a tax of between 10% and 20% on all imported products. Earlier this month, he told the audience at the Economic Club of Chicago that such a tariff could reach as high as 50%.

Last year, the U.S. imported about $3.8 trillion worth of goods, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis found. To generate the same amount of revenue currently brought in by the individual income tax, a tariff would have needed to be set at about 70%, Alan Auerbach, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who focuses on tax policy, told ABC News.

However, a tariff of such magnitude would significantly reduce U.S. trade, slashing the total amount of imported goods and, in turn, reducing tax revenue.

“It wouldn’t be feasible,” Auerbach said.

Erica York, a senior economist and research director at the Tax Foundation, echoed that view. “It’s mathematically impossible,” York said.

Replacing the individual income tax with tariffs would also shift a greater share of the tax burden onto low- and middle-income households, experts said.

The top 50% of earners accounted for nearly 98% of all federal income taxes in 2021, according to the Tax Foundation. The bottom 50%, in turn, made up about 2% of income tax payments.

Higher tariffs are widely expected to raise prices of consumer goods, since foreign producers typically pass the cost of higher taxes onto customers. As a result, the costs of higher tariffs would fall evenly across U.S. households, since all Americans purchase consumer goods.

In some cases, low- and middle-income earners would pay a higher proportion of the cost burden, since consumer spending often makes up a higher share of their overall budget than it does for their well-off counterparts, Goldwein said.

“Tariffs are at best a flat tax and more likely a regressive one,” Goldwein added.

Trump would have some latitude in setting and implementing tariffs, experts previously told ABC News.

But his proposal to eliminate the personal income tax would require support from both houses of Congress.

“Trump can’t just eliminate the individual income tax,” York said. But, she added, Trump may seek to negotiate tax cuts in 2025, when many of the provisions associated with his signature tax reform law are set to expire.

“Trump could possibly negotiate further tax cuts to be added to those,” York said. “But I don’t see a situation where Congress would align with this swap between the income tax and tariffs.”

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