As the fallout from Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally spilled into Monday, even some of the candidate’s closest allies were left lamenting the series of racist, misogynistic and vulgar remarks made before the former president spoke.

At its best, they say, the rally was a missed opportunity to deliver a cogent closing argument. At worst, it was emblematic of an undisciplined campaign — or even a darker sign of a movement that had enabled some of its menacing impulses.

John Fredericks, a conservative radio host and Trump ally, said the selection of radio host Sid Rosenberg and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, in particular, was “asinine,” and that they “should have been better vetted.”

“Here we are talking about two obscure people that have nothing to do with this election, instead of the 100,000 people that were there, the tremendous speeches, the love for President Trump, the great closing of the campaign that Trump is doing,” Fredericks said. Madison Square Garden can hold about 20,000 people, though thousands more than that lined up to gain entry to the rally.

Meanwhile Peter Navarro, a former administration official and campaign surrogate, furiously posted that the comedian was “tone deaf” and “in poor taste” in the final stretch of the election, while David Urban, a former 2016 Trump campaign adviser, called it “unfortunate,” even if he said “it doesn’t spell the death knell” for the campaign.

One day after the rally, the fallout over the vulgar and racist comments made by some guests in the pre-program continue to reverberate across the campaign. Republican allies of the former president have had to publicly defend Puerto Rico and denounce the comments. Puerto Ricans in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania are planning to protest Trump’s rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Tuesday. And Harris’ campaign has cut a new digital ad over the rally comments and held events with Latino surrogates in Philadelphia.

It is reshaping the final stage of the race less than a week before Election Day, and with early voting well underway across the country.

“Apparently the October surprise was a presidential campaign committing mass political suicide on stage at MSG,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump administration appointee.

For the one-night event at the famed arena, the Trump campaign essentially put together a mini Republican National Convention — but without the typical guardrails of a major political party event like vetted speeches.

Hinchcliffe’s stage name, “Kill Tony,” was part of the original list of speakers advertised sent out by the campaign. His jokes, who is known for insult comedy and celebrity roasts, were not reviewed or vetted ahead of the rally, according to two people familiar who were granted anonymity to discuss the situation.

And Hinchliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico was not among the remarks loaded into the teleprompter, according to a person with knowledge of the rally’s logistics, but it’s unclear how many of the offensive comments Sunday were included in speakers’ scripts ahead of time.

The reaction to his remarks, which also included offensive remarks about Black people, Jews and Palestinians, differs in at least one significant way to the response to the release of the crude “Access Hollywood” recording near the end of the 2016 campaign. Back then, a third of Senate Republicans expressed their disapproval with Trump, badly wounding him and leading toward a taped response from him. Now, though, even among the 18 members of the Republican Hispanic Conference, none made themselves available to POLITICO.

Speaking at a rally in Wausau, Wisconsin, Trump’s running mate JD Vance acknowledged that “maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke.” But he didn’t condemn it, insisting he hadn’t “seen the joke.”

“I think that it’s telling that Kamala Harris’ closing message is essentially that all of Donald Trump’s voters are Nazis and you should get really pissed off about a comedian telling a joke,” Vance said. “That is not the message of a winning campaign, and most importantly, it’s not the message of a person who’s fit to be the president of the United States of America.”

But the racist mocking and vulgarities also left the Harris campaign an opening to drive home the message it’s been hammering on the trail for days: That Harris has a to-do list while Trump has an enemies list. Harris said Trump’s rally “focused and fixated on the grievances on himself and on dividing the country.”

Speaking with reporters at Joint Base Andrews before departing to events in Michigan, Harris said that the remarks cast no new light on Trumpism. “What he did last night is not a discovery, it is just more of the same,” she said.

On that matter, Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist in Arizona, agreed.

“It was more noise in the ‘Trump is dangerous and a bad person’ narrative,” he said. “But who didn’t know this? This is just example 732 of Trump being divisive and un-American. Will it change one person’s mind? I don’t think so. Is it wrong? Is it hurtful? Of course. It isn’t different.”

In a tacit acknowledgement the rally did not hit the campaign’s own mark, the campaign distanced itself from a comedian’s mockery of Puerto Ricans but also reminded reporters that Trump had announced a new tax break for family caregivers during his speech — a fact drowned out by the din. The Trump campaign email’s subject line: “ICYMI: ‘Donald Trump unveils new tax break for family caregivers at Madison Square Garden rally.’”

It was, of course, easy to miss. A succession of speakers traded in racist and misogynistic stereotypes in the hours leading up to Trump’s address.

“Whoever thought he was good to book, they misjudged the room,” Urban said of Tony Hinchcliffe, host of the Kill Tony podcast. “They did not, and they probably could not, anticipate that this guy was gonna say something kind of crazy?”

It wasn’t, however, just one speaker or one joke that sidetracked the event’s messaging — and not all the offending remarks were apparent jokes. Businessman Grant Cardone said Harris had “pimp handlers,” while David Rem, a Trump childhood friend, called Harris “the anti-Christ.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to POLITICO messages Monday asking whether Trump agreed with the tenor of those remarks.

“If it were me, if I were running the campaign, I’d have Grant Cardone talk about his economic opportunity and how he’s helped people create wealth — color in the lines,” Urban said. “If your childhood friend is Donald Trump, I’d talk about what a great guy he was, and he hasn’t changed since he was a kid. I would focus on the positive things and not venture outside your area of expertise.”

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who is Black and spoke at the event Sunday, told POLITICO that it was Democrats who were “race-baiting because they know they’re losing.”

He said, “If you’re going to allow a comic to now decide what your vote is going to be, I think that’s misplaced. Donald Trump has been focused on the American people.”

Harris’ response, he said, is the sign of a campaign flailing for something to arrest their freefall.

“Kamala Harris still can’t speak about what she’s going to do. All she wants to do is call Donald Trump Hitler,” said Donalds, who is seeking a third term in Congress.

Not long after the rally, the Trump campaign distanced itself from Hinchcliffe’s remarks.

Harrison Fields, a Trump surrogate who is of both Black and of Puerto Rican descent, said that in Pennsylvania, home to nearly half a million people of Puerto Rican descent, Harris seized on it to check her failures in the battleground.

“They have a Pennsylvania problem,” Fields said. “I think a lot of that is circled around the Puerto Ricans, or Hispanic vote. You also have a massive problem in Pennsylvania when you talk about the Jewish vote. So what are they weaponizing … this Hitler rhetoric, and now they’re doing the Hispanic stuff.”

In a campaign where every unfolding event has become something of a Rorschach test, all the cleanup around this one struck Fredericks, the radio host and Trump ally, as a wasted day when there are precious few left.

Fredericks said, “I think it’s a tempest in the teapot at the end of the day, but with eight days to go, we shouldn’t be wasting 10 seconds on it, and we’re now wasting a day.”

Daniella Diaz contributed to this report.