Obama criticizes comic's Puerto Rico remarks at Trump's rally

President Joe Biden spoke of Harris' character and qualifications as she heads into the home stretch of the campaign trail during remarks Monday on the upcoming celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

"I selected Kamala to be my running mate for many reasons: She's smart, she's tough, she's trusted, a district attorney and an attorney general in California, a United States Senator, now vice president of the United States," Biden said in the White House's East Room. "There is more experience that she has than the whole of that other guy she's running against. But most importantly, and I mean this sincerely from the bottom of my heart: She has character."

As he spoke about "light" in the country, Biden said the U.S. is at an "inflection point" ahead of the election.

"Every generation has been called to move us forward to be the nation we say we are but only once in every few generations are we reminded not to take the idea of America for granted," he said.

-ABC News' Allison Pecorin

The Trump campaign debated internally on whether to even put out a statement addressing the comments made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump’s Sunday Madison Square Garden rally, multiple sources familiar with the discussions told ABC News.

Sources involved in the planning of the rally also told ABC News that all speakers were asked to submit drafts of their speeches so they could be loaded into the teleprompter. ABC News was told Hinchcliffe's speech originally had a joke labeling Vice President Kamala Harris with a vulgarity, but the comment was flagged by campaign staff who asked for it to be removed.

Those sources who reviewed the speech insist that while some of Hinchcliffe’s jokes remained in the speech, others including his line calling Puerto Rico "a floating island of garbage" were ad-libbed.

The Trump campaign declined to comment.

-ABC News’ Rachel Scott, John Santucci and Katherine Faulders

At a faith-focused campaign event on Monday, Trump touted his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday as a “great rally” and bragged about his “soft foul” language, saying “a little spice” is necessary.

Several speakers at the Sunday rally faced backlash for making racist and other controversial comments.

Trump quipped that Rev. Franklin Graham had told him he should stop using so much foul language.

“’Mr. President, it's Franklin Graham, and I just want to tell you, I love what you do, I love what you say. I love your stories. I think they're great, and keep telling them, but they'd be even better if you wouldn't use foul language,’” Trump recounted his exchange with Graham to laughs.

“So I thought about it, and I said, ‘I'm going to try.’ And I did try, and I'm not sure, I'm not sure I'd make the emphasis quite as good. I've been pretty good about it, but I'm not sure,” Trump said. “Everyone said, ‘Well, you need a little bit of something, a little spice, a little spice to juice them up a little bit.’ But I got that letter, and I sort of laughed. I said, ‘I'm not sure you're right about this.’”

“And sometimes I'll use a little bit not hard, not hard foul, but soft foul. We call it soft foul, but, you know, to emphasize something about somebody’s abilities, or whatever I might be talking about,” Trump said.

-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Kelsey Walsh and Soorin Kim

Trump's running mate was pressed by reporters while campaigning in Wisconsin to weigh in on the controversy caused by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday.

JD Vance claimed he heard about the comments but didn’t see them. Vance, when asked if the racist jokes were the right tone for the Trump campaign's final argument, pivoted to attacking Harris, claiming her closing pitch is “essentially [was saying] that all of Donald Trump's voters are Nazis and you should get really pissed off about a comedian telling a joke. 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," Vance said.

"Maybe it's a stupid racist joke as you said, maybe it's not. I haven't seen it," Vance said. "I'm not going to comment on the specifics of the joke, but I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I'm just, I'm so over it."

-ABC News' Hannah Demissie