Good morning and welcome to Tuesday. Election Day is in one week. Florida’s political world is ablaze after pro-Donald Trump comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” on Sunday during an insulting comedy set at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in New York. Several Florida Republicans are incensed by Hinchcliffe’s remarks. Rep. María Elvira Salazar called them racist and said she was “disgusted.” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart praised the island territory as “integral to our country’s success.” And Rep. Carlos Gimenez called the set “completely classless and in poor taste.” Florida is home to roughly 1.2 million people of Puerto Rican heritage. While many Florida Hispanics have trended toward Republicans, Puerto Ricans tend to favor Democrats. A Mason-Dixon poll published this month found Puerto Ricans in Florida support Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump by 58 percent to 33 percent, even as Florida Latinos overall break for Trump. Democrats quickly tried to capitalize on the Sunday's comments , saying the former president had a history of incendiary remarks. Rep. Darren Soto, who’s of Puerto Rican descent, said on a call with reporters Monday that Hinchcliffe’s comments had gone “viral across our community in a matter of minutes.” He encouraged Puerto Rican voters in Florida to respond through voting to show their “electoral might.” And Democratic state Sen.-elect Carlos Guillermo Smith called the outcry from Republicans “too little, too late,” in a statement to Playbook, accusing the GOP of endorsing “Trump’s extreme policies and rhetoric.” Some GOP lawmakers disagreed with the rhetoric but thought the backlash was disproportionate. GOP Rep. Byron Donalds told POLITICO’s Brakkton Booker that much of the news coverage had focused on the comedian versus what Trump himself said at the rally. “Democrats are race baiting because they know they're losing,” Donalds said. “If you're going to follow a comic to now decide what your vote is going to be, I think that's misplaced.” Rep. Matt Gaetz dismissed the matter as a joke while other Republicans said policy issues were more important. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, the lone incumbent in a tight reelection race, accused Democrats of being more offended by a “comedian making a bad joke” than over immigration issues, including the fact that the federal government failed to adequately monitor the whereabouts of migrant children. GOP Sen. Marco Rubio said on X that he understood why people were offended but “Harris destroyed our economy and allowed dangerous criminals to illegally enter our country and terrorize, rape and murder Americans.” Sen. Rick Scott was among the first Republicans to condemn the joke as “not funny and not true.” The senator, who is up for reelection, has long courted the Hispanic vote and campaign senior adviser Chris Hartline said “Scott has been a friend and ally [to the Puerto Rican community] throughout his time in office.” Scott had also publicly disagreed with Trump in 2018 when the then-president falsely accused Democrats in Puerto Rico of inflating the death toll from Hurricane Maria to damage him. The storm was a long-lasting crisis for the island territory, where power took almost a year to be restored in some areas. Scott said he’d surveyed the devastation numerous times. Still, Scott’s early rebuke didn’t stop Florida Democrats from highlighting the comedian’s comments. And the Harris campaign launched a new TV ad blasting Trump’s handling of the recovery from Hurricane Maria when he was president. “The only thing that is trash — I want to say to Rick Scott and Donald Trump — is these extremists’ lack of leadership in the Senate and the current Republican extreme MAGA party's refusal to stand up for the Puerto Rican people,” Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell sad in Monday’s call with reporters. Democrats are hosting another press conference on the issue today in Orange County that will include Mucarsel-Powell, Soto and Rep. Maxwell Frost. Have a tip, story, suggestion, birthday, anniversary, new job, or any other nugget in the campaign reporting that Playbook should look at? Get in touch at: kleonard@politico.com.
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