Vikings agree to acquire left tackle Cam Robinson in trade with Jaguars, per AP source

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Vikings agree to acquire left tackle Cam Robinson in trade with Jaguars, per AP source

2024-10-30 11:35 Last Updated At：11:40

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Vikings have agreed to acquire eight-year veteran left tackle Cam Robinson from the Jacksonville Jaguars, a person with knowledge of the trade confirmed Tuesday.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the deal was pending completion of a physical exam and not yet finalized.

The Vikings agreed to send the Jaguars a conditional fifth-round pick in the 2026 draft that can become a fourth-rounder based on playing time, the person said, and the Jaguars will also trade a conditional seventh-rounder in 2026 that can go away based on playing time.

Robinson, who has spent his entire career with the Jaguars since being drafted 34th overall in the second round in 2017 out of Alabama, will give the Vikings (5-2) another option for replacing standout Christian Darrisaw after his season-ending knee injury.

Darrisaw tore the ACL and MCL in his left knee in the team's last game. He was replaced by veteran David Quessenberry. The other in-house options are rookie Walter Rouse, a sixth-round draft pick, and starting left guard Blake Brandel, who started three games at left tackle in 2022 when Darrisaw was out with a concussion.

Robinson was cleared from concussion protocol last week but did not start Sunday against Green Bay, with the Jaguars trying to get an extended look at backup Walker Little, their second-round draft pick in 2021 who is also in the final year of his contract.

This will be the second trade of a veteran in three weeks for the disappointing Jaguars (2-6), who earlier shipped defensive tackle Roy Robertson-Harris to Seattle for a 2026 sixth-round draft pick.

Minnesota plays at Jacksonville on Nov. 10.

Robinson served a four-game suspension last season under the NFL's policy on performance-enhancing drugs for what he said was inadvertent but careless consumption of a banned substance after suffering a torn meniscus in his right knee.

The Vikings are also on the verge of bringing Dalton Risner back from injury. He started at left guard last season and would allow Brandel to move to left tackle at least temporarily while Robinson learns the offense. No matter what lineup the Vikings land on, though, they won't be able to match the one-on-one dominance they leaned on with Darrisaw on quarterback Sam Darnold's blind side.

“Obviously a great football player, but a great guy,” Brandel said. "Devastating. My heart goes out to him. It’s a tough deal, and it’s the worst part about football.”

AP Pro Football Writer Mark Long contributed from Jacksonville, Florida.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Trump says his New York rally marked by crude and racist insults was 'an absolute lovefest'

2024-10-30 11:22 Last Updated At：11:30

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Urged by some allies to apologize for racist comments made by speakers at his weekend rally, Donald Trump took the opposite approach on Tuesday, saying it was an “honor to be involved” in such an event and calling the scene a “lovefest” — the same term he has used to describe the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. 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 multiple events and in interviews Tuesday, 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.”

On Tuesday night, he told Fox News' Sean Hannity that he knows nothing about Hinchcliffe but said, “I can’t imagine it’s a big deal.” He later agreed, though, that “probably he shouldn’t have been there.”

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.

“This is not a time to have anyone criticize Puerto Rico or Latinos,” former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump for the GOP presidential nomination and later endorsed him, said in an interview with Fox News Channel.

Trump later held a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a city with a large Hispanic population, where Puerto Rico’s shadow U.S. senator, Zoraida Buxo, joined him and defended the former president's record.

“We need this man to be our commander in chief,” said Buxo, who cannot vote in the Senate because Puerto Rico is not a state. “He will make us feel safe and he will protect us.”

Still, there was anger in Allentown. Ivet Figueroa, 61, stood outside the rally venue holding a trash can with the words “Trash Trump” on it.

She said of the insult and Trump:: “The person who said it was vetted by him. So that’s what he allowed, so he has to take responsibility for what he said. Now it’s too late for saying ‘sorry.’ I don’t want an apology, I want justice, and justice is on Nov. 5.”

The fallout from the Madison Square Garden event 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.

In an interview with ABC News earlier Tuesday, Trump claimed to not know 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.

In the Hannity interview, Trump said people were trying to make the comedian's appearance into a “big deal” when it “has nothing to do with the party, has nothing to do with us.”

Asked later in the interview whether he wished the comic wasn't there, Trump said, “Yeah, I mean I don’t know if it’s a big deal or not, but I don’t want anybody making nasty jokes or stupid jokes." He added, “Probably he shouldn’t have been there, yeah.”

Later Tuesday, President Joe Biden, on a call organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino, denounced the comic's joke and said, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters." He later tried to clarify his comment, saying he was talking about “the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter.”

The comments from the Madison Square Garden rally 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, where Trump campaigned Tuesday night, the Latino eligible voter population has nearly tripled since 2000. More than half of those are Puerto Rican voters.

Angelo Ortega, a longtime Allentown resident and former Republican who’s planning to vote for Harris, said he couldn’t believe what he’d heard about Trump’s rally.

“I don’t know if my jaw dropped or I was just so irritated, angry. I didn’t know what to feel,” said Ortega, who was born in New York but whose father came from Puerto Rico. Ortega has been campaigning for Harris and said he knows of at least one Hispanic GOP voter planning to switch from Trump to Harris as a result of Hinchcliffe’s comments.

“They’ve had it. They’ve had it. They were listening to (Trump), but they said they think that that was like the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Ortega, a member of the Make the Road PA advocacy group.

Still, some voters of Puerto Rican descent weren't fazed. Maricelis Torres, 24, a waitress studying to be a radiologist, waited to get into the Allentown rally and said she and her family laughed at Hinchcliffe's joke.

“If you don’t understand humor, then that’s what I’m saying, people are way too soft these days,” said Torres, whose father is from the island.

The Harris campaign has released an ad that will run online in battleground states targeting Puerto Rican voters and highlighting the comedian’s remarks.

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 years-old hurricane damage in Puerto Rico until shortly before the 2020 election.

Gomez Licon and Price reported from Palm Beach, Fla. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

Vikings agree to acquire left tackle Cam Robinson in trade with Jaguars, per AP source

Sport

Vikings agree to acquire left tackle Cam Robinson in trade with Jaguars, per AP source

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