By Barbara Miller, ABC North America correspondent
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arriving to speak at Madison Square Garden in New York, on 27 October. Photo: ANGELA WEISS / AFP
Analysis - Donald Trump's not sorry; he's apparently very, very angry.
The Republican presidential candidate addressed the media at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after facing backlash over comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's racist comments at a Madison Square Garden rally two days ago.
Megastars of the music industry, among them Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, have lined up to condemn the comedian's remarks that Puerto Rico was a "floating island of garbage" and endorse Trump's opponent.
Several Republicans representing areas with significant Latino populations, including Florida senator Rick Scott, have also distanced themselves from the comments.
Inside Mar-a-Lago, reporters in the room appeared vastly outnumbered by Trump supporters, wearing MAGA merch and bopping to the tunes blaring out, including "Thriller" and "You're the One that I Want".
The former president kept the crowd waiting for 80 minutes past the billed start time.
Would or wouldn't the Republican presidential candidate mention the furore over Hinchcliffe's comments?
Was the delay in Trump's appearance perhaps due to him workshopping with his advisors how best to address demands from the GOP Madam Chairperson in Puerto Rico and the island's Catholic archbishop that he personally issue an apology?
Apparently not.
When he walked to the lectern it was to rail with unchecked vitriol against his opponent Kamala Harris.
Trump then delivered what amounted to a mini-campaign speech, in which he said illegal migrants were overrunning the country, raping and killing women.
He brought guests in as props, including the mother of a young girl allegedly abused and murdered by illegal migrants.
Trump again brought up Springfield, which he falsely claimed was where migrants were eating pet dogs and cats during his debate with Harris.
This time he did not repeat the false assertions, though he argued the newcomers are destroying the area.
But there was no mention of the anger and hurt that members of the Puerto Rican community have expressed in the wake of the comedian's comments at the New York rally.
Trump 'doesn't know' comedian behind Puerto Rico comments
Shortly after the New York City rally wrapped up, Trump's presidential campaign appeared to be in damage control.
His team rushed out a statement saying Hinchcliffe's comments did not reflect the views of the Republican candidate.
Trump also said he doesn't know the comedian in question.
"I don't know him, someone put him up there. I don't know who he is," he told ABC America.
US comedian Tony Hinchcliffe speaks during the rally on 27 October. Photo: ANGELA WEISS / AFP
He said he didn't hear Hinchcliffe's set at the rally.
That much is plausible.
The former president would possibly not have listened to the hours of speeches that preceded his introduction onto the stage by his wife Melania.
If he had been paying attention, he would have heard that the "floating island of garbage" remark was just the one that floated to the top of a whole heap of racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-Palestinian bile spewed by various speakers.
Hinchcliffe also made lewd remarks about Latinos' use of birth control, while former Fox host Tucker Carlson appeared to be enjoying a racist riff about Harris' ethnic heritage.
Rudy Giuliani also claimed Palestinians were taught to kill Americans at the age of two.
Arab Americans could be a key voting bloc in next week's election, with many left disillusioned by the Biden administration over the war in Gaza.
Even if Trump was unaware of the specifics of the content of the comedian's speech at the time, he's certainly across it now.
Roughly 55 minutes into his remarks at Mar-a-Lago, Trump addressed the elephant in the room, at least in the minds of the reporters there.
There was, however, no apology, no distancing, no attempt at relativising.
In fact, Trump doubled-down, describing the Madison Square Garden rally as "like a lovefest, an absolute lovefest".
"It was breathtaking," he said.
"I don't think anybody has ever seen anything like what happened the other night at Madison Square Garden."
On those latter points there's widespread agreement.
And then to the strains of one of his favourite songs, "YMCA", Trump walked off the stage at Mar-a-Lago as his supporters craned to get a snap of him.
The screen behind the podium lit up with the slogan: Trump Will Fix It.
Trump appears so far to have zero intention of walking back Hinchcliffe's comments.
That's despite the fact the Puerto Rican community wields a lot of potential power in who takes the White House.
Pennsylvania and the Puerto Rican vote
Puerto Ricans on the US island territory in the Caribbean can only cast symbolic ballots, but around 6 million people of Puerto Rican heritage live in the US.
And 500,000 live in Pennsylvania, which offers the biggest electoral prize of all the swing states.
Whoever wins the state walks away with 19 electoral college votes, which is potentially the difference between victory and defeat.
Trump took Pennsylvania in 2016 by 44,000 votes, and Biden won it by 80,000 in 2020.
If Trump had wanted to hand Harris a split-screen moment in the final days of the campaign, he couldn't have planned it better.
As the vice-president was courting the votes of Pennsylvania's Puerto Rican community, by announcing her policy for the island and visiting a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia, Trump was holding his profanity-laced rally at Madison Square Garden.
Harris later said she was proud to have the support of stars like Bad Bunny and J-Lo "because they understand that they want a president of the United States who's about uplifting the people".
Kamala Harris has been trying to win the votes of Pennsylvania's Puerto Rican community in the last few weeks. Photo:
"And not berating, not calling America a garbage can," she added, referencing Trump's latest campaign catchphrase on illegal immigration.
A young man I met in New York who was waiting in line for hours to see Trump said he liked the former president's anti-establishment take, and just found him "hilarious".
I pressed him on what he thought about Trump's recent riffing about the size of the late golfer Arnold Palmer's penis.
The 24-year-old said he wouldn't have made those comments himself, but it didn't shock him.
Much of Trump's support is baked in.
Voters have made up their minds about the former president and accept a certain level of crazy and vulgar, but it's just possible he's gone too far this time.
'Garbage' comments tug at old wounds
The floating garbage controversy has taken some Puerto Ricans back to 2017 and Trump's response to Hurricane Maria, which slammed into the island as a category four storm.
The then president resisted sending aid, denied the official death toll and on a visit insulted many residents when he threw rolls of paper towels at them.
"The 'floating garbage' line was no accident. This is what Trump truly thinks of Puerto Ricans," claims a new campaign ad by conservative, anti-Trump political action committee, The Lincoln Project.
The ad uses images of the paper towel-throwing incident.
"On November 5th show him what you think of him," it urges.
It's impossible to know the impact on the election of the Puerto Rico comments.
If they damage the Republican candidate, they could in time be viewed as the much-hyped "October surprise", an event in the final weeks of the presidential campaign so powerful it shifts the needle.
They could also simply be the latest headline in an election season full of them.
The incident has at the very least sharpened the contours.
For anyone still on the fence - and apparently there are still a few of them - the differences between the two main candidates really couldn't be clearer.
A week from today America will decide which one to hand power to.
- ABC