Another Donald Trump rally moment has gone viral for all the wrong reasons, but this time it isn’t anything the Republican nominee said — though it’s at least in part in response to what he didn’t say.
The Trump campaign has since distanced itself from the controversial and racist jokes made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at the former president’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, emphasizing of the most viral insult, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
“Republicans are the party with the good sense of humor,” Hinchcliffe said in his set on Sunday. “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there is literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico?”
As Ana Navarro noted on The ViewMonday morning, Trump took the stage at his rally a full four hours after Hinchcliffe’s set, meaning he and his team had a lot of time to prepare some kind of response condemning the rhetoric in his speech. That didn’t happen.
The campaign response came to The Washington Post on Sunday night and it came after several prominent Latino celebrities condemned Hinchcliffe’s tasteless joke about Puerto Rico on their social media platforms, and after Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate Governor Tim Walz and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned the jokes in a live Twitch stream, which you can see above.
Hinchcliffe stayed on brand in responding to Walz and Ocasio-Cortez’ outrage over his jokes at the rally. Sharing the above post to his own X/Twitter account, he wrote, “These people have no sense of humor.”
“Wild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist,” the post continued. “I love Puerto Rico and vacation there. I made fun of everyone…watch the whole set. I’m a comedian Tim…might be time to change your tampon.”
While there was a consensus around The View table that Hinchcliffe’s racist jokes were incredibly offensive and insulting to Americans of color and immigrants — and therefore should be offensive to allAmericans — Sunny Hostin had perhaps the most passionate response.
She could be seen seething with emotion as she read from a statement she’d prepared in advance to defend her island roots, and island that has been and continues to be a United States territory. Puerto Rico, despite the rhetoric, is America.
“This Puerto Rican has something to say about the island that I love, where my family is from,” Hostin said, staring down the barrel of the camera. “Puerto Rico is trash? We are Americans, Donald Trump. Americans.”
She called out the island’s disproportionate voluntary military service, “while you have bone spurs … and we vote.” She then listed the Puerto Rican populations in all of the battleground states and reiterated, “We vote, Donald Trump.”
“And by the way, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Bad Bunny, Luis Fonsi, and Marc Anthony have over 345 million followers on Instagram,” she added. “I think you only have 26 million, since you care so much about size.”
“We don’t like what was said about Puerto Rico. And we know how to take the trash out, Donald Trump. Trash that has been collecting since 2016, and that’s you, Donald Trump,” she added, before turning her attention. “And finally, my fellow Puerto Ricans, trash collection day is November 5, 2024. Don’t forget it.”
Navarro, who is a Nicaraguan-American, talked about an encounter with someone she had after that viral rally moment, sharing that a woman wanted to talk to her about it, saying, “Today, we are all Puerto Ricans.”
She then went on to emphasize that Hinchcliffe didn’t just target Puerto Ricans in his set. He had an extremely off-color joke about “my proud Latinos,” where he very graphically talked about how “they love making babies,” while talking about them crossing the border.
Even Trump’s rally crowd didn’t respond particularly well to much of his material, which included him seemingly calling out a Black man for “a thing on his head,” asking, “What the hell is that, a lamp shade?”
Hinchcliffe then played it off with another racist stereotype, saying they’re pals. “We had a Halloween party last night,” he quipped. “We had fun, we carved watermelons together.”
After roughly summing up Hinchcliffe’s jokes and various targets among immigrants and people of color, Navarro said, “Today, we are all in this together.” She went on to list previous Trump moments and comments that might not have moved the dial for some people.
“If Trump asking for the death penalty for five young men of color, Black and Latino — the Exonerated Five — wasn’t enough for you…
“if Trump getting investigated for refusing to rent to Black people wasn’t enough for you…
“If Trump promoting a racist trope against the first Black president with the birtherism bulls–t wasn’t enough for you…
“If Trump calling Mexicans rapists and criminals and bad hombres wasn’t enough for you…
“If Trump calling us vermin, invaders, people who poison the blood of this country wasn’t enough for you…
“If Trump throwing paper towels at people in need after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico wasn’t enough for you…
“If Trump saying immigrants have made this country into the trash can of the world wasn’t enough for you…
“…then maybe, just maybe this comedian, hand-picked, chosen, vetted by the Trump campaign because he reflects what Trump has said his entire lifetime, maybe that will be enough for you.”
She then called for everyone to “vote for your heritage and your tradition and your identity. I want you to vote with dignity and self-respect.”
Representing some of the biggest names in Latin music, Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Luis Fonsi, and Marc Anthony have now all come out in support of Vice President Harris.
In making his endorsement for Harris official, Bad Bunny shared a clip from her social media account where she says in a video, “I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he did not do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and a competent leader. He abandoned the island, tried to block aid after back-to-back devastating hurricanes and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults.”
Lopez and Martin shared the same video to their accounts, expressing their support for the vice president in this upcoming election. Lopez added the Puerto Rican flag to her share, while Martin wrote, “This is what they think of us. Vote for @kamalaharris.”
Luis Fonsi took to his Instagram where he wrote, per WNBC, “Going down this racist path ain’t it. We are not OK with this constant hate. It’s been abundantly clear that these people have no respect for us.”
Hinchcliffe’s jokes were even falling flat with some conservatives, with former Fox News host and ex-Trump supporter Geraldo Rivera urging voters to support Kamala Harris over the Republican nominee.
“‘A floating island of garbage…?’ Referring to Puerto Rico??? ‘Poisoning the blood of our nation…?’ We have ‘murder in our genes….?’ Rivera posted to X/Twitter. “F–k these racists. Latino men of good will, have pride in yourselves and your ancestors. A vote for Trump is a vote against self-respect.”
