Is the Backlash to a Racist Joke Trump’s October Surprise
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MAGA! The MAGA people! The MAGAs! On Sunday night, former President Donald Trump held a closing rally in Madison Square Garden. Speakers at the event made a host of racist and misogynistic comments. She is some sick bastard, that Hillary Clinton, huh? What a sick son of a bitch.

The whole fucking party, a bunch of degenerates, low-lives, Jew haters and low-lives. She's a fake, a fraud. She's a pretender. Her and her pimp handlers will destroy our country. One offensive remark that attracted a lot of attention was from the comedian and podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe. Like, 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. Yeah. I think it's called Puerto Rico.

Okay. All right. Okay. We're getting there. After the event, a senior advisor for the Trump campaign issued a statement about Hinchcliffe's joke, writing, this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.

But there's still damage control left to be done. The video of Hinchcliffe's comedy set has gotten millions of views on social media. And on Monday, more people were Googling Tony Hinchcliffe than they were Taylor Swift. The Archbishop of Puerto Rico called on Trump to personally apologize for the joke, saying that a statement from the campaign was insufficient. Here's what Trump had to say on Tuesday. But I think no president's done more for Puerto Rico than I have. The Latino vote is critical in this election.

In Pennsylvania, the overwhelming majority of the Latino population is Puerto Rican. So, with less than a week left to go before Election Day, did the Trump campaign just make a massive, unforced error? New Yorker contributing writer Jerry Cadava joins the show to discuss the fallout from the rally and where things stand with Latino voters this election. You're listening to The Political Scene. I'm Tyler Foggett, and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker.

Hey, Jerry. Thanks so much for being here. Yeah. Hi, Tyler. How are you? I'm good. Good. So we spoke on the show last November about what draws Latino voters to Trump. And I'm wondering how things have evolved with Latino voters since then. Like, what trends have we been seeing up until the rally on Sunday? Yeah. I mean, big picture is that

since the time that we last talked for several months, well into the spring, it looked like Joe Biden's numbers were just becoming worse and worse among Latinos to the point that

Some polls showed it to be like a single digit kind of margin for Biden. One New York Times Siena poll even showed him losing the Latino vote. And things changed for sure when Kamala Harris became the candidate. She immediately kind of re-energized women who had become kind of alienated from the Democratic Party. But men have proven to be a little bit stickier and more.

You know, there it seems like 45, 48, almost 50 percent of Latino men are planning to vote for Donald Trump. And I think the net result is that Kamala Harris has kind of brought things back to very close to where they were in 2020.

So we've talked before about how Latino voters are in no way a monolith. And so when we talk about Trump making gains with the Latino community, I'm wondering what that actually means. Like, what groups are we talking about? Because there's obviously this history of the Republican Party doing well with Cubans in Florida. But I'm wondering what groups of Latinos are gravitating toward him.

Yeah, so the Cubans in Florida are still certainly conservative. So he's still kind of relying on that base of Latino conservatives. But things have also changed a lot in the past four years where one thing I always find just astounding is that 30% of the Latino voters who will vote in this election have never voted before. They will be first-time voters. So we're not quite sure what their political preferences will be. And when you talk about the Latino electorate, I think it's first –

important to realize that the electorate today is just very different than it was four years ago. And it remains to be seen kind of how and by what they will be energized by. So that's one thing to note. I think the other thing to note is that

According to Trump campaign officials, Trump is making his greatest gains among first and second generation Latinos who are recently naturalized. That came as a total surprise to me because, you know, you hear often that it's the third and fourth generation, more assimilated Latinos who intermarry, move to suburbs, who are becoming more conservative. But in fact, talking to...

Trump campaign officials, they feel like it's actually recently naturalized immigrants who left bad situations in Latin America and come to the United States seeking stability and opportunity that have been drawn to Trump. And so I would say that in addition to this kind of older group of Latino conservatives, the Cubans, the Venezuelans, others, I think these kind of like working class immigrants

First and second generation Latinos drawn to this promise of the American dream, stability of life here, educational and work opportunities. That's who they're kind of tapping into. So on Sunday night, during Trump's capstone rally at Madison Square Garden, the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as an island of garbage in the ocean.

You've been in contact with Latino strategists within Trump's campaign. What is your sense of their reaction to this? And do you think that they knew pretty quickly that this was going to be an issue? Yeah, they did. I was texting with some of them during the rally itself, and they said that they will have to clean it up. So they were aware. I don't know that they fully anticipated the full fallout, but I think what's going on is

A week before the election, it seems like both campaigns are really trying to target the maybe 5%, 6% of undecided voters. And I'm not even sure that they know or that we know how many of that 5% or 6% are Puerto Ricans or Latinos in general. I mean, I think that's important to remember too. It was an attack against Puerto Ricans, but I think...

Democratic Latinos are also, or Latino Democrats, I should say, are also invested in

The idea that he was talking to all Latinos, not just Puerto Ricans. And so it's not just that the comments can change the minds of some Puerto Rican voters. It's that it might also shape the ultimate decision of Latinos broadly and even African-Americans and others. I mean, I think it's a comment that kind of highlights the theory of the case that fundamentally this is what Trumpism is all about.

But it's interesting because, I mean, if you, you know, I watched Hinchcliffe's set and his comedy set, if you can call it one. And he did make specific comments about black people. Like he made a joke about black people carving watermelons for Halloween. Heck yeah. It's a cool black guy with a thing on his head. What the hell is that? A lampshade? Look at this guy. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Wow.

I'm just kidding. That's one of my buddies. He had a Halloween party last night. We had fun. We carved watermelons together. It was awesome. You guys, this is a groany little morning crowd. He made a terrible joke about Latinos. And these Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There's no pulling out.

They don't do that. They come inside just like they did to our country. And it's interesting because I feel like the Puerto Rico comment has really, that's the one that's gone viral. And as you just mentioned, it's being used to just kind of show how bigoted the Trump campaign is in general. But I'm curious why these other comments haven't been sort of like highlighted in the same way as like,

I just don't know whether that's because it was like the most offensive thing that was said or... That's a great question. I mean, I think that...

Part of it is in the room when Hinchcliffe made the Puerto Rico joke, you could hear audible groans. Like the audience did not know how to react. And I've been trying to figure out what that's all about. I've been wondering if Trump himself had said it, if there would be groans. I mean, I don't think I've ever heard one of Trump's audiences kind of groan at something he said. It seems like they're willing to go along and applause regardless.

I guess the flip side of it not being Trump who said it, if Hinchcliffe was a kind of – they didn't know how they felt about Hinchcliffe yet. And his comment after the Puerto Rico joke was, oh, you know, okay, we're just getting started. I'm just feeling things out here, you know. And so – It might even have something to do with like the brand of like –

a Trump supporter in New York City who was going to this rally or even like, I even wonder, I mean, I guess apparently there were like 200,000 people who were trying to go to this rally that had, the arena has a capacity of 20,000 and people were lining up beginning at like midnight the day before. So you would imagine that the people there were true believers, but I know some like liberal friends who were just kind of like, I wouldn't mind going to that rally and kind of seeing what it's all about. And so I actually wonder if like,

the comment or the joke would have played better at like a Trump rally that wasn't in New York, basically. Great question. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, you know, the audience, I think, that is inside the building that is hearing the joke. I mean, I think these are, you know, the Trump loyalists. I think the people for whom it is important to make the trek to Madison Square Garden to hear him speak. So,

You know how the joke would have played in the room. I kind of suspect that it might have been the same or similar, whether it was outside of New York or inside New York. But I think the other thing that's going on and I don't want to go down a road of saying like the Latino vote is more important than any other group of voters right now. But I do think that over the past four years.

We've talked about Latino voters as kind of swingier and maybe more open to hearing Trump's messages than, yes, I know that we've talked about black voters as well who it seems like in small increments are shifting toward Trump. But I guess I'm just trying to think about the –

like overall tenor of the conversation about Latinos over the past four years as being the voters who are somehow newly more open to Donald Trump. And so maybe that explains in part the reaction. I think also, I kind of also think that Latino democratic advocacy organizations have been

frankly, kind of like fed up with all of the platforming that we in the media have given to this story about the rightward shift among Latinos that I think that, and they kind of understand that they see that in polls, that shift has kind of been

you know, that it does seem like Latinos are moving toward the Republican Party if only incrementally and in slow drip. So I think that when they have a moment like this, they are just ready to,

sees it because of how much the conversation over the past four years has focused on the rightward shift. And can you talk a little bit about what the pushback has looked like from advocates and from, you know, Democrats who have, like I saw AOC on the news talking about how offensive it was, for example? Totally. And I wonder if that too is part of the explanation for why that comment has gotten so much more attention than the comments about Black voters, for example, because

Across the spectrum, across the Latino political spectrum, these comments have been rejected, not just by AOC and Tim Walz, but by Governor Rick Scott in Florida, a Trump ally, Marco Rubio, a Trump ally, Maria Elvira Salazar in Florida, a

another Trump ally, but also on the island, the Republican Party of Puerto Rico, former governors of Puerto Rico like Luis Fortunio, they've rejected it. So it's kind of been panned across a wide political spectrum. And I think it's therefore kind of put Republicans or it has put Trump in the position of having to, you know, if not apologize,

make it known that those comments were not representative of his beliefs or Trump isn't because he's also getting a lot of pressure from his Latino allies. And we were just talking earlier about how you could hear these groans from the crowd and, you know, Scott's sentiment, which is that the joke bombed and that the crowd wasn't that into it, isn't necessarily false. But I do wonder, like,

Does it matter how the crowd reacted? I feel like there's still this problem of like the Trump campaign putting Hinchcliffe on stage. And I'm just curious whether you think this if the rejoinder is going to be, well, the joke bombed, if that will make a difference. I don't think so. I mean, I think that feels to me a lot like grasping at straws. I mean, let's be clear. I mean, I don't think that.

that joke in any way helps the Trump campaign. If that joke is going to have a negative impact for either of the candidates, it's 100% going to be about Trump. I can't imagine a possible way that he would benefit from having to make this joke. Look at how my crowd hated this racist joke. See, we are the party that loves Latinos. Totally. We're the true party of inclusion, which is what both he and Vivek Ramaswamy tried to convince us of as well. And I should say that many of the

people I was standing in line with, they were also trying to convince me that Trumpism is actually all about love and unity. So I was hearing them tell me this as I was watching the stream outside of the building of the Hinchcliffe set, if you want to call it that. You know, I don't think it's going to be so easy to explain away as just a bad joke that bombed because I think a lot of people have been trying to make distinctions between the kinds of jokes that can be told in

at political rallies where the former president of the United States

is present versus what you might say over drinks at a comedy club. I think that's one thing. I think, you know, one thing Republicans have been trying to do is bring up this George Lopez bit too, where at a political rally, he talked about Mexicans being thieves and they've tried to say, Republicans have tried to say like, oh, Democrats are getting so bent out of shape about what this guy Hinchcliffe said, but they're totally forgiving of what George Lopez said. And then,

I've heard in response to that, which makes sense to me, you know, there's a kind of history in comedy of people who come from a particular group being able, whether it's right or wrong, whether you agree that this is an acceptable version of what comedy can do, you know, the idea is that if you come from a particular group, you're allowed to make jokes about that group. But Hinchcliffe was not Puerto Rican. And also, I think to me, it's pretty compelling that

You know, he says like, oh, I'm a shock comedian who this is what I do. I offend people. And, you know, I roasted Tom Brady, too. But in his set at Madison Square Garden, he was not talking about white people at all. You know, it was only directed at others. The roasting was in one direction. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I know that you said that, you know, we should be thinking of how these comments or how these jokes will affect the decision of Latina voters more generally and not just Puerto Ricans, which I think is absolutely true. But.

Since there are, you know, an estimated 5.9 million Puerto Ricans in the mainland U.S., many of whom can vote, my understanding is that if you live in Puerto Rico, you can't vote in the U.S. presidential election. But if you're in the mainland U.S., you can. I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about which states have the largest Puerto Rican populations and assuming that this comment is doing some damage, where that damage might be done. Yeah.

Yeah, you're totally right. Puerto Ricans on the island are not allowed to vote in the general election. They can participate in the primary process and they can also send delegates to the nominating convention to cast votes for the nominee or who the eventual nominee, who they support for the nomination.

But even though they can't vote in the general election, there are all sorts of ways that Puerto Ricans on the island influence the decisions of Puerto Ricans on the mainland. I mean, one is that

They have lots of family members who can vote here in the United States. And so they're in constant conversation with their family members who can actually vote about who they should vote for, what their best version of politics should be, that kind of thing. But then also, you know, Puerto Ricans have long sent, Puerto Rico has long sent its political leaders to go and lobby in the United States for the issues that matter to Puerto Rico. So it might be statehood, it might be

independence, it might be the maintenance of the Commonwealth status, those sorts of things. So I think there's a much more kind of fluid relationship between politics on the island and politics on the mainland, even if people on the island cannot vote in the general election. But you also asked about the particular places. I mean, I think the biggest Puerto Rican communities on the mainland are in Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania. I think that

That leads us all to assume that it's most likely to not have a huge effect on places like New York or Florida, which are seen to be pretty safe for either Republicans or Democrats, respectively. And therefore, we turn our attention to Pennsylvania, which has hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans. And I think the

population of the state that's Puerto Rican is at least three or four percent. And I should say, I should check this because I don't know if we're talking about just the population or the voting eligible population, but certainly plenty of Puerto Rican voters who can tip the election in favor of one candidate or the other. But the other thing I really want to stress is that there are

enough Puerto Ricans in places like Arizona and Georgia to also tip a very close election in these states where votes are being decided by 10,000, 20,000 votes.

I think really anything matters. And I think that's part of it. Part of what we have to keep in mind is that in this last stage of the campaign, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about kind of squeezing out 10,000, 20,000 more votes from wherever the candidates can. And so I think that it's probably one of the stronger cards that the Harris campaign has to play right now to try to bring

a group of voters that they were worried about slipping away from them back into the fold. Do you know how well Trump was doing with Puerto Rican voters, you know, more generally before this? Like, I'm sort of curious about what the top issues often are for this part of the population, given that Puerto Rico is a territory of the U.S. and its residents are citizens, like the way that Trump's immigration rhetoric might play with them.

versus someone who immigrated from Venezuela or something? Yeah, I mean, this question is perhaps even more interesting than you realize, because I think, you know, the historical fault lines in Puerto Rican American politics usually have to do with the territorial status of the island. You know, even the main political parties in Puerto Rico, which are not the Democratic or Republican parties, but parties like the pro-independence party, the pro-statehood party, the pro-commonwealth party, etc.,

Those the politics of the island have largely been formed around the question of Puerto Rico's territorial status. So obviously, that's an important question. And generally, the kind of conservatives on the island who tend to be members of the PNP, the Partido Nuevo Progresista, and they tend to ally themselves with the Republican Party.

of the United States, although it's not like a direct correlation. Same thing with the PPD or the PIP, the Partido Popular Democrático or the Partido Independentista. Those tend to ally themselves with the Commonwealth status and independence respectively, but it's not that clean of a relationship. Nevertheless, I think in the United States, it is the territorial status of the island that has kind of framed

Puerto Rican politics for more than a century, I mean, for a really long time. But you have a lot of interesting dynamics happening recently, like the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and how the different parties have responded to that and whether Puerto Ricans both on the island and in the diaspora feel like Puerto Rico has been supported by either party. So that tends to be an issue.

But as you mentioned, you know, the immigration debate, it resonates with different Latino communities in different ways. Cubans in general, Cubans and Puerto Ricans tend to be a little bit further removed from border politics, for example, just because they've had different immigration experiences. And one thing that

Puerto Ricans have often used to distinguish their experience from the experience of other Latinos is the fact that they are already citizens who've been able to move freely back and forth between the United States for more than 100 years since 1917. So, you know, I do think that these issues just resonate a little bit differently. But I think also Puerto Ricans

Across the country have, you know, they've also been brought into Trumpism. Those who are inclined to support Trump have been brought into Trumpism. So their preferences, too, have been shaped by this politics of working class grievance having been left behind. And so it's a really complicated mix. And it's hard to say which one of these...

sets of concerns is ultimately most likely to shape their decision when it comes time to vote. But I think it's all part of the mix. So, Jerry, I'd love to talk more about how Harris is capitalizing on this misstep from the Trump campaign. But first, we're going to take a quick break. We'll hear more of the political scene from The New Yorker in just a moment. ♪

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In the immediate aftermath of the MSG rally, a number of Puerto Rican celebrities, including Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, and Ricky Martin, either endorsed Harris for the first time or reiterated their support for her. I know that Bad Bunny's endorsement in particular was a big one. We've all been waiting. We've all been waiting. We really have. And both Harris and Trump were kind of jockeying for it, right? And so it's interesting because one imagines that, you know, the election's

a week away, Bad Bunny hadn't endorsed before this. There's a chance that he might not have endorsed had it not been for this comment at the rally on Sunday, although maybe he was planning to do it at the most, you know, crucial moment. Maybe it was going to happen this week anyway. But, you know, I'm just curious how much of an impact do you think that these celebrity endorsements could have? It's a great question. You know, I think

The Trump campaign would like to say that they don't matter. Although if Bad Bunny had endorsed Trump, I'm sure they'd be saying it's the biggest. I'm sure he would have been excited in the same way that they were very excited to...

parade out Nicky Jam and Unwell AA to their events to talk about how they had endorsed Trump. So I'm kind of curious about the whole contest for celebrity endorsements. I mean, I think historically there's no doubt that Democrats have won that battle, if you want to call it that. But I think the way they go about talking about it can also feel derogatory, I guess, or dismissive of the

the Republican appeal because, you know, I think it's long been a Republican talking point. They're like, sure, Democrats might have Hollywood in their pocket, but that just makes Democrats, as we've been saying for a long time, representative of, you know, the elite intellectual class, you know. But it is interesting to see in some ways, just the whole way that Trump talks about the building of movements and broad popular appeal, you

It seems to me like – and just kind of in your faceness of some of Trumpism, like riding down the streets of Manhattan in these huge pickup trucks with eight Trump flags or just up the road in Cold Springs, New York, where you have a Trump train of 150 pickup trucks flying Trump flags. It seems like it's very in your face. And to me, it's kind of always felt like the Trump movement is –

trying to reclaim some of the stardom and celebrity that they felt that Democrats have had a kind of stranglehold on for so long.

And, you know, that's embodied by the candidate himself, the celebrity host of The Apprentice. And so I think that in some ways conservatives themselves kind of been yearning for that closeness to celebrity. And that's part of the appeal of people like Hulk Hogan or Dr. Phil. I mean, Dr. Phil and Hulk Hogan are not Bad Bunny, but – or Kid Rock, for example. So –

Will it make a difference? That's a really critical question. I think you'll hear a lot of Latino Democrats these days and the Democratic Party in general talking about how, you know, if you look at people like Ricky Martin, Bad Bunny, J-Lo and others, these are people who have a combined following of like 300 million people. I don't know if these are all Americans, but they have, you know, many followers. And

You know, I think there are a lot of questions to be asked about what it will mean because, you know, are there followers, people who would tend to vote for Kamala Harris if they were going to vote at all anyway? And so maybe all that's happening is kind of the consolidation of support. I guess it could have a kind of rallying get out the vote effect if you had support.

Someone who would maybe lean toward the Democratic Party but wasn't quite sure if they were going to show up to vote for Kamala Harris. Maybe they will be energized. But I've also been curious about this in the context of the reaction to the rally on Sunday because –

I've seen a lot of the protest rallies taking place in places like Harlem, where I don't know how much that matters. How much is a protest in Harlem going to shape the thinking of swing voters in Pennsylvania? I don't know. Well, it's interesting. I mean, going back really quickly to this idea of the celebrity endorsements and what they'll do, I wonder if—

actually the effect that they'll have is that you can imagine a lot of people, Latino or otherwise, watching this rally or watching a clip of this joke on Twitter and then thinking, you know, I was thinking about voting for Trump, but now I'm just going to stay home. And I wonder if something like Bad Bunny's endorsement is what then gets the voter to think, you know what, I'm actually going to go vote for Harris as opposed to just staying home and sitting this thing out. I think that's one of the...

It gives them like a clear option, you know? I think that that would very much be the thing that the Harris campaign is hoping for. And they might be right. All right, Jerry, we're going to take another quick break. We'll have more from the political scene in just a moment. The 2024 election is upon us and the stakes couldn't be higher. But the outcome might not be clear till long after everyone has voted.

If the race ends up being as close as it looks right now, we could be in for a repeat, or worse, of the year 2000, when the presidency came down to a recount in Florida that ended at the Supreme Court. To hear the whole story, check out Fiasco, Bush v. Gore, a podcast from the co-creators of Slow Burn. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

So one thing that I've been trying to figure out is I would assume that Puerto Rican voters and Latino voters more generally must be aware of Trump's own long history of racist comments and racist comments directed toward Latinos. I can't imagine that there are Puerto Rican voters who don't remember, you know, the image of Trump throwing paper towels to hurricane victims. And so one thing I've been trying to figure out is do you think that this is the comment that could really make

difference and that might really penetrate? Or do you think that a lot of Latino voters already sort of know who Trump is and they've come to terms with it, regardless of what a comedian might say at his, you know, closing rally a few days before the election? I think Latino voters really do know who Trump is already. And I

What I think, though, the way that it will impact the election, again, is not that there will be some mass abandonment of Latinos away from Trump. It'll be a way of mobilizing just a few thousand voters that could tip the election. So...

I think your question is important because, yeah, there's just a litany. I mean, I would say if there were, you know, a small handful of things that have defined Trumpism, it's been his positions on immigration and his inflammatory remarks not only about

Latinos and but about many others as well. So it's a good question. Like, why would this particular incident be the thing that be the straw that broke the camel's back? Really? You know, why? Why would that be the case? First of all, I don't know that it will. We could be right. I mean, you could be right. I could be right. I don't know who's saying it, but we it could be true that, you know, people already know how they feel about Trump. That's been the case for a long time in his campaign's

theory for a long time that he is the person. That's why they don't think that a get out the vote, a robust ground game is as important because, you know, the theory has been that he will be the one to get out the vote. And that's why, you know, his campaign should really just be focused on

campaign or election integrity because he is going to be the one to drive out voters. And that's not a dumb theory per se because people do know how they feel about Trump. And like, I almost kind of think that nothing that anyone else tells me about Trump or tells someone about Trump is going to change their minds about Trump. People feel the way they feel about Trump. And so in that sense, it might not matter. That's why I think the thing that will matter is or could matter is, again, just trying to

squeeze what they can out of this small number of voters that remains undecided or persuadable in what will surely be a really close election. And I want to take that thought, this idea that people know how they feel about Trump even further and speculate that voters of color who support Trump are

really know why they support him. Like, I would imagine that they are constantly having to think about, like, the kind of, like, inherent contradictions of their position and seeing things he's said that would ostensibly be offensive and kind of come into terms with that in a way that maybe white voters aren't necessarily. I wonder if it's kind of easier for someone who was white to sleepwalk into being a Trump supporter. And so one thing I've been thinking about is to what extent might we be actually talking about, like,

swing voters who have Puerto Rican neighbors or was already feeling kind of like weird and embarrassed about voting for Trump. And now it's just this reminder very close to Election Day that this is supporting someone who maybe you thought you were supporting him because he's better on the economy or whatever. But now it's like having to kind of answer for having voted for the person who brings shock jocks like Tony Hinchcliffe on stage just to like rail on Latinos and black people. So

Totally. I think that's absolutely right. That's a really great insight. I do think that from having talked to them for several years, I do think Latino voters have had to justify their support for Trump a lot to themselves and to others. And I think that on the other side, Latino Democrats have been hoping and waiting for a long time that there would be some moment that would shock them. It's like almost like they...

They think that Latino conservatives have been kind of zombies following their leader and they're just waiting for something that will wake them up, something that will shock them enough to realize, to see Trumpism for what it is. And I think that this is probably the joke about Puerto Rico is probably just the latest opportunity they feel to realize

have Latinos who support Trump be kind of like shaken out of the stupor they've been in for the past several years. And, you know, I don't know what to make of that. I mean, I think that it might be the Harris campaign's best play at this point, you know, and the more that in the last few days Trump is having to

have press conferences where he is saying that he's not a racist, if that's indeed where he gets with today's press conference, you know, and that they're not Nazis. I think Kamala is winning that argument. You know, that's not what they want to talk about. They want to be reminding, the Trump campaign wants to be reminding American voters, Latinos in particular, maybe about the economic argument he's been making all along. And I do worry, one worry I have is that

If the play by the Harris campaign right now to really lean into showing how racist and fascist Trump is, quote unquote, then it again kind of absolves them from having to answer for their shortcomings, you know? And I think that it might work right now. It might work. They might win the election. Harris might win the election. And I wouldn't want the lesson to be like, well...

you know, we told you that this problem could be fixed if everyone just recognized how fundamentally racist the Republican party is. Because I do think that, you know, in all of the interviews of Latino Republicans that I've done over the past several years, they will point to real concerns they have about crime safety, charter schools, um,

immigration, the economy that they feel like the Democrats haven't had an answer for. So I get why the Harris campaign is making this play. And I think so far in the past 48 hours, say, they've been winning the news cycle by being able to dip back into the bag of talking about how racist Trump is. And again, it might carry them through Election Day. But I think beyond the election, they'll still continue to have questions to answer.

Thank you so much, Jerry. Jerry Cadava is a contributing writer for The New Yorker. You can read his latest pieces at newyorker.com. This has been The Political Scene. I'm Tyler Foggett. This episode was produced by Sam Egan and edited by Gianna Palmer with mixing by Mike Kutchman. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Chris Bannon is Condé Nast's head of global audio. Our theme music is by Alison Leighton-Brown. Enjoy your week, and we'll see you next Wednesday.

My name is Madeline Barron. I'm a journalist for The New Yorker. I focus on stories where powerful people or institutions are doing something that's harming people or harming someone or something in some way. And so my job is to report that so exhaustively that we can reveal what's actually going on and present it to the public.

You know, for us at In the Dark, we're paying equal attention to the reporting and the storytelling. And we felt a real kinship with The New Yorker, like the combination of the deeply reported stories that The New Yorker is known for, but also the quality of those stories, the attention to narrative. If I could give you only one reason to subscribe to The New Yorker, it would be... Maybe this is not the answer you're looking for, but...

I just don't think that there is any other magazine in America that combines so many different types of things into a single issue as a New Yorker. You know, like you have poetry, you have theater reviews, you have restaurant recommendations, which for some reason I read even though I don't live in New York City. And all of those things are great, but I haven't even mentioned like

the other half of the magazine, which is deeply reported stories that honestly are the first things that I read. You know, I'm a big fan of gymnastics and people will say, oh, we're so lucky to live in the era of Simone Biles, which I agree. We're also so lucky to live in the era of Lawrence Wright, Jane Mayer, Ronan Farrow, Patrick Radden Keefe. And so to me, it's like, I can't imagine not reading these writers. ♪

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