Harris vows to launch Puerto Rico task force

Vice President Harris vowed to launch “a new Puerto Rico Opportunity Economy Task Force” in the case she wins the presidency in a video posted Sunday to Instagram.

“As president, I will bring down the cost of housing, invest in small businesses and entrepreneurs and fight to finally secure equal access to programs that strengthen the health care system and support children, seniors and working people,” Harris said in the video.

“I will create a new Puerto Rico Opportunity Economy Task Force, where the federal government will work with the private sector, with nonprofits and community leaders, to foster economic growth and create thousands of new, good paying jobs in Puerto Rico, including for our young people,” the vice president added.

Puerto Rico has faced hardships including a debt crisis, devastation from Hurricane Maria and problems with its electric grid all within the last decade. The island also lacks voting power in Congress, as well as having no say when it comes to who wins the White House every four years (though Puerto Rico does participate in presidential primaries).

Harris’s video came on the same day as a speaker at a Trump rally went after the Caribbean island and U.S. territory, drawing backlash from her campaign and other Democrats. In his comments at the rally, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe said “I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now,” adding that he believes “it’s called Puerto Rico.”

In response to a clip from a Twitch stream featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), criticizing the comments, Hinchcliffe said in a post on the social platform X Sunday that it is “[w]ild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist.”

“I love Puerto Rico and vacation there,” Hinchcliffe added in his post. “I made fun of everyone…watch the whole set. I’m a comedian Tim…might be time to change your tampon.”

Puerto Rican rapper and superstar Bad Bunny also shared Harris’s Instagram video featuring the comments about the task force on his Instagram story Sunday.