PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — About 100 people — many wearing Harris-Walz buttons and shirts — attended a Get Out The Vote event at Taller Puertorriqueño Wednesday afternoon.
A band and dancers entertained the crowd and speakers like “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda took the stage to help rally the Latino vote.
He told attendees to vote like their life and Puerto Rico depend on it, and addressed a comment made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a Donald Trump rally in New York over the weekend, where Puerto Rico was referred to as a “floating island of garbage.” The Trump campaign says Hinchcliffe's joke is not a reflection of Trump’s views
"Listen, let's keep it 100, if you are Puerto Rican, you have heard worse than that to your face,” he said, “I know I have. To hear it given an international platform by the Trump administration was dispiriting, but not surprising to many of us, but I think more than anything it was a reminder of how much he treated our island like garbage, especially after [Hurricanes] Irma and Maria.”
In 2017, Trump visited Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria slammed into the island as a powerful Category 4 storm. He tossed paper towels into a crowd and denied the storm’s official death toll, with experts estimating that nearly 3,000 people died in the aftermath, according to The Associated Press.
“I’m so tired of the chaos. The insults. The finger-pointing. We already had four years of Trump. We remember what that was like, that division,” Miranda said.
Mia Harris, Kamala Harris’ sister, was also on hand. She said supporters need to organize and do everything they can to get people to vote and elect Harris as the next president of the United States.