‘I’m Going to Just Flatly Call BS’: CNN Panel Scoffs at Team Trump’s ‘Weak Sauce’ Claim They Didn’t Vet Widely Denounced Rally Speech

CNN anchor Dana Bash and the rest of her panel on Inside Politics were extremely skeptical of claims by former President Donald Trump’s campaign that they did not vet remarks by Tony Hinchcliffe, who performs as “Kill Tony,” that were drawing outrage and accusations of racism.

The Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City Sunday night made national headlines for multiple incendiary remarks by the speakers who preceded the ex-president on stage, especially Hinchcliffe’s so-called joke that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.” The Trump campaign attempted to distance itself from that comment and multiple conservatives denounced it — although they were mostly silent about the other racist and outrageous comments that were said by Hinchcliffe or others on that stage.

Bash covered the claim by the Trump campaign that they didn’t vet Hinchcliffe’s speech on Monday morning’s episode of Inside Politics, first playing the video clip of the “floating island of garbage” segment.

“He made plenty of other horrifying remarks about Latinos, but they’re frankly just too X-rated to play here,” said Bash, before cuing Kristen Holmes to report on the controversy. The statement from the Trump campaign included “no apology,” Holmes reported, but it was still “very telling” that they were admitting “there is some trouble there politically” for them, due to the “backlash” that was “almost immediate” and came “not just from Democrats but also from Republicans.”

“One thing to keep in mind here, Dana,” said Holmes, “as somebody who goes to almost all of these rallies, nothing Donald Trump himself said last night was any different from what we have heard time and time again and reported on. This rhetoric around immigration, around crime, it’s kind of fear stoking language that is all things that he has said before.”

Holmes added that she had spoken to several Trump advisers who said that “the remarks were supposed to be vetted” and one source specifically who claimed that Hinchcliffe’s “entire speech was not vetted.”

“I’m going to just flatly call BS on the disconnect” between what was said on stage and what the Trump campaign was claiming, Bash responded to Holmes’ reporting, adding that Hinchcliffe’s one comment “was part of a theme that we heard last night.”

Bash then cued up a series of clips from the rally before bringing on her panel.

CNN correspondent Priscilla Alvarez commented that Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign was “very happy to seize on it,” and Hinchcliffe’s speech had led directly to Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Luis Fonsi, and other major Puerto Rican celebrities endorsing Harris.

The math made this moment especially important, Alvarez added, with Biden winning Pennsylvania by only 82,000 votes in 2020 and the state being home to nearly half a million Latinos, many of which are Puerto Rican. Swing states like Georgia and North Carolina also have significant Puerto Rican populations.

Manu Raju sharply condemned Hinchcliffe’s “vile” and “racist” comments and also noted they were not in isolation. “The Trump campaign statement distancing itself was pretty weak sauce,” said Raju, and they didn’t bother to even try regarding the many other “flat out racist” comments.

Bash added that the Trump statement came from “a spokesperson nobody’s actually heard of,” and not “the actual candidate.”

“If the campaign wants nothing to do with it, they have to be stronger in pushing back,” replied Raju, “but the response has been pretty weak so far.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.