Trump rallies in Pennsylvania city with highest Hispanic population hours before polls open

Just over a week after a comic’s joke about Puerto Rico being an “island of garbage” at a Trump rally attracted days of negative media attention, the former president held another rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, an area rich with Latino pride. 

Pennsylvania’s fourth-largest city was historically the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country, but has in recent decades become home to the highest proportion of Hispanics in the commonwealth. A 2021 report by the Reading Eagle estimated about two-thirds identify as such. 

During the Monday rally, Trump invited Patty Morin onstage. Morin’s daughter Rachel was raped and murdered in 2023 by a Salvadoran illegal immigrant wanted for murder in his home country.

Morin told the crowd everyone in her town loved Rachel, and credited Trump with the proverb, “When the righteous man reigns, the people rejoice.”

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Trump (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Rachel Morin was murdered in 2023 when Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez encountered her on a jogging path in Harford County, Maryland.

Before Trump took the stage, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., offered a speech partially in Spanish — remarking he never likes the media’s translation.

In Spanish, or dialectically “Cuban,” as the lawmaker joked, Rubio encouraged voters to come out for Trump on Tuesday and laid out a positive vision for the mogul’s second term.

Trump later asked the crowd the same question Ronald Reagan had: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

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A Pennsylvania welcome sign greets drivers on US-222 entering Peach Bottom, Pa., from Maryland, 2022. (Charlie Creitz)

“You built this country; you’re going to save this country too,” he said. “The ball is in our hand, it’s at the two-yard line, maybe the one-yard line.”

“Tomorrow, you have to stand up and tell Kamala you’ve had enough… ‘You’re the most incompetent vice president we’ve ever had… Kamala you’re fired — get the hell out of here,'” he boomed.

Trump said Harris orchestrated the “biggest betrayal” of the American people, before referring to the U.S. as an “occupied country” due to illegal immigration.

Trump also reserved criticism for Sen. Bob Casey, Jr., D-Pa., after inviting challenger David McCormick to speak.

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Trump characterized Casey — in office since defeating Sen. Rick Santorum in 2006 — as a two-decade “survivor” who accomplished little other than retaining his job in Congress.

He appeared to suggest Casey simply followed his namesake father’s coattails into office. The elder Casey, of Casey v. Planned Parenthood fame, was governor from 1987-1995.