Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has called his rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden, an event marked by crude and racist insults by several speakers, a “lovefest”.
It is a term the former US president has also used to reference the January 6 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Mr Trump said “there’s never been an event so beautiful” as his Sunday night rally in his home town of New York City.
Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP)
That is despite criticism from Democratic vice president Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign and many who watched – including Republicans – about racist comments made targeting Latinos, black people, Jews and Palestinians, along with sexist insults directed at Ms Harris and former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s set, in which he joked that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage”, stirred particular anger given the electoral importance of Puerto Ricans who live in Pennsylvania and other key swing states.
The Trump campaign took the rare step of distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico but not other comments.
Mr Trump did not address Hinchcliffe’s joke on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago.
But he ripped critics who have pointed out that Madison Square Garden was host to a gathering of Nazis in 1939.
Several of the speakers on Sunday referenced that event, including former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, who said: “I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
“Nobody’s ever had love like that,” Mr Trump said of the hours-long Sunday event that featured speakers including some of his adult children, wife Melania and high-level surrogates and supporters, including TV psychologist Dr Phil McGraw and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
“It was really love for our country.”