Tony Hinchcliffe calls Puerto Rico 'island of garbage' at Trump rally

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, host of the “Kill Tony” podcast, opened Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden with a set replete with slurs about Latinos, African Americans and other groups that Trump’s campaign is actively targeting to turn out for the former president.

His racist remarks drew swift rebuke from across the political spectrum, including from a pair of prominent congressional Republicans from Florida and New York. GOP Rep. María Elvira Salazar wrote on X that she was “disgusted” by his “racist” rhetoric that “does not reflect GOP values.” Sen. Rick Scott denounced the “joke” as “not funny” and “not true.” And Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) said on social media that “the only thing that’s ‘garbage’ was a bad comedy set.”

[gonzoradio]

I love how the joke has become more important than the fact that there is literally a garbage crisis in Puerto Rico.

[dell]

I am puerto Rican, wish yall could hear the jokes we make about Cuba

[icykickflip]

he's brought more awareness to puerto rico's trash isue than anyone in the world

[cloutfisher]

I don’t even get what the joke was supposed to be. He just called Puerto Rico garbage for no payoff

[brandonhaygood]

Leave it to a bunch of self righteous virtue signalers to get more offended by a joke than actual Puerto Ricans.

[andrewmartinez]

The joke didnt land but they literally have a waste issue in puerto rico

[Ladondorf]

I'm Puerto Rican, and I'm perfectly open to offensive jokes, but this one just isn't funny and doesn't make much sense. He set up the bit by talking about "migrants", but Puerto Rico is part of the United States. And we don't particularly have a waste problem. If he wanted to poke fun at our infrastructure, he could have talked about the potholes or the power outages. But by calling Puerto Rico "garbage", it just seems like he's throwing a U.S. territory under the bus for no good reason. Huge mistake for the Trump campaign, especially in NYC where there are a lot of Puerto Ricans.

[Toler_ance]

He’s a comedian . I’m Mexican and I can say whoever gets offended to this is dumb af

[panleygoobis]

You know it’s funny when it makes both sides angry

[salonbasi]

Bro its literally not even that bad. Its a
J O K E. He’s a C O M E D I A N.

[Kimm.J]

Is this supposed to help him win new voters..?
Or even keep them..?
What a train wreck

[DerdOnner]

Funny how no one but the leftist media cared about this 😂

[jerryoakes]

Tony do you wanna help Trump. Sit down and shut up. You’re not helping and you’re not funny

[zincpodsquamble]

They cut off the laughter after he told that joke. Ppl are complaining about the wrong things. That joke was hilarious.

[anson.meadows]

The sensitivity and general weakness of the folks bothered by the joke is really a mark of this era. When you don’t have real problems, you find them where they don’t exist.

[Garso]

The jokes makes sense if you know even a little bit about the situation in Puerto Rico. The joke was as the expense of the Biden administration, not at the expense of Puerto Ricans. Tony was in fact not calling Puerto Ricans trash. The joke is about how trash is literally washing up on Puerto Rico and how they have to use the beaches as landfills. It's literally an island of trash at this point. Puerto Rico has tried over and over to get help from the Biden administration, but instead of helping, they just gave them a relatively small donation. It was like a 900k donation and it was for cleaning up the island and preserving the ocean life around the island. 900k is not even close to enough to be able to do that for an island of that size. What they need is to have the trash taken to proper landfills and incinerators on Americans mainland, but the Biden administration refuses to help them. That's what the joke was about. It's about how horrible the Biden administration is, that they won't even help a territory that desperately needs help. Puerto Rican and anyone that understands anything about the situation all know what it's about, but because the left doesn't, they are trying to use it as a way to get the Hispanic vote, without realizing how ignorant it is for them the not understand the situation and how it's correctly calling out the left on them ignoring people who need help.

[aserher]

He's doing the Democrats a big favor.

[jimaalex]

This is wild, to say the least. It was the most racist thing i have ever heard or seen on tv.

[dirgeofthedawn]

I just don't get it? Like, there's no context to the joke or set up before he says it. Should the general audience at a Trump rally know that PR has dealt with waste management or something? It just feels like an unprompted, bad joke. People in the comments keep saying stuff like "typical libs getting mad", "they don't understand comedy", etc., but can someone explain what actually makes this joke funny? Outside of literally just saying PR is bad? It could've been funny if he'd been criticizing the Govt. for their lack of support for PR's waste management issue and set up that context beforehand, or if he had provided literally *any* kind of context. But as it is, it just feels like calling someone fat. It's an attack with zero comedic effect unless you just don't like PR or latinos or something.

[cdr]

I don’t think this landed okay with the public. No one laughed no one laughed no one clapped.