Trump's closing campaign message is hampered by distractions, disconnect

Former President Donald Trump's final week in the race against Vice President Kamala Harris has been hampered by a series of controversial remarks and unforced errors that threaten to mute his closing argument to voters amid a deluge of Democratic attacks and legal backlash.

Throughout the week, Trump's campaign aired thousands of ads focused on his policy platform: universal tariffs, deeper tax cuts and sweeping immigrant deportations. But what garnered the most attention were a comedian's insults of Puerto Rico, Trump's violent rhetoric about a political opponent, and a comment about women.

Last Sunday, the Republican presidential nominee kicked off his final week on the campaign trail with a buzzy rally at New York's Madison Square Garden. The event was billed as an economic pitch to New Yorkers, but that message was drowned out by a circus of crude and at times, flat-out racist, remarks from some of the introductory speakers.

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's opening set drew the loudest backlash after he called Puerto Rico "a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean."

Hinchcliffe's comments triggered a wave of criticism from Puerto Rican celebrities like musician Bad Bunny, as well as from elected officials and voters.

"It's not hitting well, I think people are pretty irritated," Allentown, Pennsylvania Mayor Matt Tuerk told NBC News on Tuesday. "Enraged is a word that I've heard a few people say."

Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state with 19 electoral votes, has a significant Puerto Rican population, heightening the political damage of Hinchcliffe's offensive comments.

Trump campaign officials spent the following hours and days of the MSG rally doing clean-up and trying to distance their candidate from the controversy.

"This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign," Trump campaign senior advisor Danielle Alvarez said last Sunday night.

Democrats and the Harris campaign seized on the controversy.

"We saw what happened in New York City at Madison Square Garden as another attempt to divide us," Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said at a local campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Thursday. "The disrespect given to our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico was not just unnecessary, it was incredibly hurtful." 

Trump's closing message was also eclipsed by his verbal attacks on former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the Republican officials who has become a key campaign surrogate for Harris.

"She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her," Trump said Thursday at an Arizona event with conservative media personality Tucker Carlson. "Okay, let's see how she feels about it. You know when the guns are trained on her face."

On Friday, the Arizona Attorney General announced that it was investigating whether Trump's violent remarks qualified as a death threat and a violation of state law.

The Harris campaign has spun Trump's comment into a contrast to back its bipartisan case for the Democratic presidential nominee.

"You have Donald Trump who is talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad and you have Vice President Harris talking about sending one to her Cabinet," Harris campaign senior advisor Ian Sams said Friday on MSNBC .

Trump's off-handed remark about Cheney again forced him and his campaign to spend the remaining days of the presidential race on damage control.

"All I'm saying is she was a nutty war hawk," Trump said Saturday on "Fox & Friends." He added, "I said, 'Put a gun in her hand and let her go out and let her face the enemy with a gun in her hand.'"

Trump has branded his rambling rhetorical style, which typically derails his central policy message, as "the weave."

"See, I weave," he said during a Saturday rally in Virginia. "Nobody else can do the weave like Trump."

With polls showing the presidential race neck and neck across the pivotal swing states in the final weekend, Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson warned of a disconnect emerging.

"His message on air is one that says, 'if you want the economy to be back on track, and you want the world to not be on fire, vote for me.' That's a good message," Anderson said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday.

"It's unfortunately for him, different than sometimes what he's saying on the stump," she said. "And I think that disconnect, if he loses will be part of why."

On Wednesday, Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin that he would "protect" American women "whether the women like it or not." The comment gave the Harris campaign another opening to argue that Trump and Republicans by extension seek to impose their beliefs about women's lives, over the objections of women themselves.

This argument is central to the Democratic party's opposition to abortion restrictions imposed in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision — an issue that polls show is driving massive support for Harris among women.

Former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod said on CNN Sunday that he was closely watching how the race was closing, and Harris is "closing well."

"She's on a message. She's been very disciplined. Trump has not, and I think that is meaningful."