Comic Tony Hinchliffe bombed at former President Donald Trump’s rally on Sunday, when his joke calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” in the middle of the ocean landed without a chuckle.
The bit drew a swift response from the Democratic Party, who repeatedly highlighted it, and drew a spotlight to other offensive and racist remarks Hinchliffe’s made in the past.
Hinchcliffe is the co-host along with comic Brian Redban of the Kill Tony podcast. Comedians of all different levels of experience get one minute to try to “kill,” on the show, which has been hosted at Joe Rogan’s Comedy Mothership in Austin since 2023.
This election season, comedians Shane Gillis and Adam Ray have been appearing on the show alongside Hinchcliffe, doing costumed impressions of former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.
In August, Ray, who does the Biden impression, appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and talked about the presidential campaign right after Vice President Kamala Harris took over as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. Rogan and Ray reacted to a rally in Atlanta where Rogan thought Harris “nailed it” with a soundbite telling Trump if he had something to say to her he should say it to her face.
“I don’t think they thought she was going to be able to do that,” Rogan said about Harris, adding that she probably “just practiced” and was coached.
“You need a couple of zingers in your back pocket,” Ray agreed.
Rogan said that despite being naturally funny, Trump should bring some comics on tour with him and have them write for him.
“It would behoove him to hire a few great comics to just tour with him and just write one-liners about all these different fucking people,” Rogan said. “I mean, if he could remember them, I mean, I know he likes to go off his own head, but if he could remember a few Hinchcliffe bangers, if he hires Hinchcliffe to take him on the road … do you know how fucking insane that would be? Hinchcliffe writing bangers for Trump to shit on people … if Trump was smart he would hire Shane and Tony Hinchcliffe to write.”
The rally Hinchcliffe performed at came a few days after a three-hour appearance by Trump on Rogan’s podcast.
“WAIT: Joe Rogan said Trump should hire Hinchcliffe to write bangers about his political opponents in August —and take him on tour,” posted the journalist Jacqueline Sweet on X on Monday. “Who listened to Joe Rogan on the Trump campaign?”
Whoever did might be regretting it.
“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Danielle Alvarez, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign told NBC on Monday.
Despite racist zingers about Puerto Rico and carving watermelons with a Black member of the audience, Hinchliffe’s speech was reportedly approved, and even toned down, by the Trump campaign.
According to The Bulwark, a “campaign insider” said that Hinchliffe, who’s a staple of recent no-holds-barred comedy roasts, had at least one joke that Trump’s team vetoed.
The joke would have echoed an ad Elon Musk’s America PAC is running calling Harris a “C-Word … a big old C-Word.”
In Musk’s ad, the “C-Word” winds up being “communist,” but in Hinchliffe’s version it would have dispensed with any euphemism or subtlety.
“Let’s say it was a red flag,” the insider said.
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