Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe doubled down on jokes he made at President-elect Donald Trump’s Oct. 27 Madison Square Garden rally in a YouTube video posted Monday.
Hinchcliffe faced backlash for sarcastically calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during his set at the rally. The following evening on his live comedy podcast “Kill Tony,” the comedian addressed the criticism, explaining the joke and asserting he felt no remorse for any of his remarks during the set.
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“Ladies and gentlemen, last night I gave a speech — I don’t know if you’ve heard about this. It was a speech about free speech, believe it or not, and I’m currently under attack. I’m the news. I don’t know if you guys know this, but in my speech on free speech, I referenced Puerto Rico, which currently has a landfill problem in which all of their landfills are filled to the brim,” Hinchcliffe said. “I guess I’m the only person that knew about this, unfortunately. And with that said, I just want to say that … I love Puerto Ricans. They’re very smart people; they’re smart, they’re street smart, and they’re smart enough to know when they’re being used as political fodder.”
“And right now, that is happening. And I apologize to absolutely nobody. Not to the Puerto Ricans, not to the whites, not to the blacks, not to the Palestinians, not to the Jews, and not to my own mother, who I made fun of during the set. Nobody clipped that. No headlines about me making fun of my own mother,” he continued. “Perhaps that venue, at that time, wasn’t the best fucking place to do this set at, but in any matter, to the mainstream media and to everybody trying to slander me online — that’s what I do. I go hard, and that’s never going to change.”
Hinchcliffe’s remarks led President Joe Biden to describe Trump supporters as “garbage” during an Oct. 29 Zoom call with the organization Voto Latino, referencing the comedian’s Puerto Rico joke.
“And just the other day, a speaker at [Trump’s] rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage.’ Well, let me tell you something … I don’t know the Puerto Rican that I know — or a Puerto Rico, where I’m — in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people,” Biden said. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”
Biden attempted to clarify his remarks in an X post following criticism, asserting he was referencing Hinchcliffe’s “hateful rhetoric” rather than all Trump supporters.
Despite Hinchcliffe’s joke and the subsequent backlash, Trump secured a majority of Hispanic male votes nationally against Vice President Kamala Harris. He also won the majority of the votes in Starr County, Texas, which was 97% Hispanic and had voted for Democrats since 1896, according to the New York Post.
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