PALM BEACH, Fla. — Urged by some allies to apologize for racist comments made by speakers at his weekend rally, former President Donald Trump took the opposite approach Tuesday, saying it was an “honor to be involved” in such an event and calling it a “lovefest” — the same term he has used to describe the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.

Trump gathered supporters and reporters to his Mar-a-Lago resort two days after a massive rally at Madison Square Garden featured a number of crude remarks by various speakers, including a set by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe in which he joked that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.” Some of Trump’s top Republican allies have condemned the remarks, and his campaign took the rare step of publicly distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s joke, though not the other comments.

But given the opportunity to apologize, at Mar-a-Lago and in an earlier ABC interview, Trump instead leaned in. Speaking at his Florida resort, he said that “there’s never been an event so beautiful” as his Sunday rally in his hometown of New York.

“The love in that room. It was breathtaking,” he said. “It was like a lovefest, an absolute lovefest. And it was my honor to be involved.”

With just a week before Election Day, some Trump allies have voiced alarm that the rally, which was supposed to highlight the Republican presidential nominee’s closing message in grand New York fashion, has instead served as a distraction and even a liability, given the electoral importance of Puerto Ricans who live in Pennsylvania and other key swing states.

At a roundtable outside Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon, Trump got some praise from a retired occupational therapist from Puerto Rico, Maribel Valdez. “Puerto Rico stands behind you and Puerto Rico loves you,” Valdez told him.

Trump thanked her and reminisced about his administration’s efforts to help the island after storms. “I think no president has ever done more for Puerto Rico than I have,” responded Trump, who delayed the release of billions of dollars in assistance to repair hurricane damage in Puerto Rico that was years old until shortly before the 2020 election.

Trump was set to hold a rally later Tuesday in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a city with a large Hispanic population, where Puerto Rico’s shadow U.S. senator, Zoraida Buxo, will join him, according to a campaign official.

The situation risked highlighting voters’ concerns about Trump’s rhetoric and penchant for controversy in the closing stretch as both campaigns are scrambling for votes.

Speakers at the rally also made racist comments targeting Latinos, Black people, Jews and Palestinians, along with sexist insults directed at Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

On Tuesday, Trump tried to move past the controversy and pivot back to Harris, lashing his rival’s record on the border and inflation.

Trump, who has painted a dark and disturbing picture of life in America since he left office, featured several speakers who shared painful stories, including Tammy Nobles, whose daughter was allegedly killed by gang members living in the country illegally.

Trump, who took no questions at the event, accused Harris of “talking about Hitler and Nazi, because her record’s horrible.”

Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff said in recent interviews with The New York Times and The Atlantic that the former president praised Adolf Hitler while in office and suggested that the Nazi leader “did some good things.”

In an ABC News interview earlier Tuesday, Trump tried to distance himself from Hinchcliffe but did not denounce what he said.

“I don’t know him. Someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is,” Trump said, according to the network, insisting that he hadn’t heard Hinchcliffe’s comments. When asked what he made of them, Trump “did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn’t hear the comments,” ABC reported.

The comments have drawn outrage from Puerto Rican leaders. The archbishop of Puerto Rico called on Trump to disavow them, saying it wasn’t enough for the campaign to say the joke didn’t reflect Trump’s views. The president of Puerto Rico’s Republican Party called the “poor attempt at comedy” by Hinchcliffe “disgraceful, ignorant and totally reprehensible.”

In Pennsylvania, the Latino eligible voter population has nearly tripled since 2000. More than half of those are Puerto Rican eligible voters.