U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and his Republican challenger, Matthew Corey, clashed in a live televised debate Wednesday night over immigration, inflation, taxation, transgender rights and, most of all, what the return of Donald J. Trump to the White House would mean for America. Murphy, 51, a Democrat seeking a third term from a blue state in a cycle that favors Republicans gaining seats in the closely divided Senate, is in a rematch with Corey, 60, a restaurateur from Manchester who does not shy from his enthusiastic embrace of Trump and his policies.  Corey politely declined when a WTNH News 8 moderator asked for specific ways in which he differs with Trump, a perceived drag on down-ballot Republicans given his losing Connecticut by double-digit margins in 2016 and 2020 and the probability he will do so again in 2024. “There’s not many ways,” Corey said. He smiled, then added, “I mean, I have a better personality than he has.” The debate came three nights after a comedian at a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden made vulgar jokes about the sexual habits of Latino migrants and called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage,” reviving accusations of Trump’s tolerance of the casual demonizing of minorities and migrants. Matt Corey Credit: Anthony Quinn / WTNH News 8 Corey said the jokes, which the Trump campaign says do not reflect the views of the campaign or candidate, were seized on by Democrats and a media that would rather avoid more pressing issues, such as the nation’s lack of control over its southern border, inflation and affordable housing. “Those statements from that comedian does not represent all the Republicans that want to fight for jobs, for not only just Puerto Ricans but for everybody in the state of Connecticut,” Corey said. Corey, who used the rally in a fundraising appeal, said he arrived after the comedian had left the stage. Democrats should be more concerned with the economic struggles of Puerto Rico since the end of tax breaks enacted during the Clinton administration that briefly made the island a target for investment, Corey said. “That was a booming, booming place. Everybody was working,” Corey said. “All those manufacturing jobs have fled Puerto Rico. All the youth have fled Puerto Rico and came to states like Connecticut. What was left? Some corruption in the government.” Murphy said the Madison Square Garden rally was illustrative of Trump’s campaign and character and consistent with his own comments, including a claim during his only debate with Kamala Harris about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio. “President Trump hasn’t distanced himself from that comment. He hasn’t criticized that comment. Why? He himself has ran a campaign trying to make us deathly afraid of people who are coming to this country to seek a better life,” Murphy said. “This narrative that Haitian immigrants are eating pets, this rhetoric that immigrants to this country are vermin. This is really disgusting. It is hateful. It’s not the America that I recognize.” Chris Murphy Credit: Anthony Quinn / WTNH News 8 Corey complained that MSNBC had compared the Trump rally to one by American Nazis in the old Garden on the eve of World War II. “He hasn’t condemned MSNBC for that,” Corey said. “I don’t know what rhetoric he’s talking about, but the rhetoric coming from the Democratic Party is just as bad, if not worse.” President Joe Biden stumbled in denouncing the rally, seemingly calling Trump’s supporters garbage. The White House clarified that Biden’s comments were directed at the jokes and supporters who made them, and Harris quickly distanced herself from the president’s remarks.  “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris said. “You heard my speech last night and continuously throughout my career. I believe that the work I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not.” The Murphy-Corey debate in the New Haven studios of WTNH was the only one of the campaign. It came after more than 400,000 votes already had been cast in the first nine days of early voting in Connecticut. Murphy was eager to introduce the topic of Trump, mentioning him twice in answering the initial question about the economy. For his part, Corey raised illegal immigration in a question about affordable housing, long before the two candidates were directly asked about immigration border policy. “It didn’t help that we had over 11 billion people coming to this country illegally who took up a lot of the housing,” Corey said. The estimated number of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. is 11.7 million. Murphy said Trump has been an obstacle to strong controls on the border, urging Senate Republicans to snub a bipartisan immigration bill Murphy had crafted with Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent from Arizona. “That bill would have passed, if not for Donald Trump,” Murphy said. “Donald Trump told his supporters in the United States Senate to kill that bill because it would have been good, politically, for Democrats. Donald Trump knew that that bill would have helped to secure the border, and so he told his supporters, ‘Kill it, because we want chaos at the border.’” Corey said the bill also had Democratic opposition. “So this bill was a failure. It’s still catch and release. It is what is wrong in this country. And I’m not talking about a mass deportation, but the people that need to be eliminated from this country are the people that are committing the most heinous crimes,” Corey said. “Senator Murphy, who embraces this administration, is soft on crime. Catch and release doesn’t work,” Corey said. “And our police are handcuffed. All you have to do is look at New York City — 75% of the arrests are from illegal immigrants.” There is no such statistic derived from arrest records. Corey later acknowledged he was referring to a New York Post story based on estimates from anonymous police sources that 75% of arrests in Midtown Manhattan involved immigrants in the country without legal status. Corey blamed the spending authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act proposed by Biden and passed by Democrats for fueling inflation. “We can see how high prices are all around. You see the job losses. We can see a lot of small businesses closing down,” Corey said. “The Inflation Reduction Act … put $7 trillion into this economy that we didn’t need, rose the prices of gas, groceries. I don’t have to tell you, you go to any supermarket, you’ll see what the prices cost.” Corey said he would support Trump’s promised tax cuts.  Murphy said the cuts Trump made in his first term benefited the rich.  “I understand Mr. Corey’s enthusiasm for Donald Trump’s tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and corporations. It’s because he believes  that that money will eventually trickle down to everybody else. But that’s never, ever how it’s worked,” Murphy said. The candidates disagreed over whether transgender athletes should be able to compete in girls sports. Corey said he agreed with Sen. Tommy Tuberbville, R-Ala., who has proposed a bill banning any governing body recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee from allowing biological men, as he refers to transgender women, from women’s sports.  But both candidates said the decision at the high school level should be left to school boards. “I don’t think the federal government should be setting the policy for women’s, men’s, boys, girls sports here in Connecticut,” Murphy said. “But listen, I do have a problem with Republican politicians who spend an outsized amount of time focused on an issue that matters to very few voters, compared to the importance of issues like the economy, like choice, like the cost of health care. I do think that there is a campaign of fear underway in this country, led by people like Ron DeSantis, to try to bully and marginalize gay and transgender children.” On abortion, Corey said Murphy was fear-mongering when he says it is on the ballot this year. The issue has been returned to the states, Corey said, and Connecticut has strong protections for a woman’s right to an abortion in state law.