Tony Hinchcliffe’s recent jokes, including one disparaging Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean,” bombed across the internet — and fellow comics were among his most vocal critics.
Hinchcliffe, host of the podcast “Kill Tony,” has faced a wave of backlash and ridicule after he made the remark at former President Donald Trump’s rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York City. He also made crude jokes about Palestinians and Jews, Black voters and Latinos more broadly.
In comments about how Latinos “love making babies,” Hinchcliffe had said: “There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.”
Later, he told a joke about one of his Black “buddies” and how they “carved watermelons” together.
After the swift backlash online, Hinchcliffe defended his comments Sunday, writing on X that his critics “have no sense of humor.” A spokesperson for Hinchcliffe did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The situation has added to what has been an ongoing debate in and around the comedy world about humor and political correctness that often centers on understanding when, how and why to push into cultural taboos.
In recent years, a handful of popular comedians have bemoaned the idea that they cannot say certain words or make certain jokes anymore out of fear of offending people. Jerry Seinfeld this month walked back his previous comments about “the extreme left” killing comedy after many online took issue with his view.
While boundary-pushing is still often baked into comedy, comedians cannot expect certain jokes to land the same way today as they perhaps would have decades ago, according to stand-up comic Jay Black.
“If you say something racist or sexist or anti-trans or anti-gay, any of those things, you’re not going to jail for that. But if people don’t like it and don’t laugh and they say that was a bad thing to say, well, that’s their right, too,” said Black, who was among those in the comedy industry who criticized Hinchcliffe’s jokes online. “You made a bad joke and did not get away with it because you didn’t present it in a way that was clever or original or spoke to the zeitgeist in such a way to make them laugh.”
When comics lament that modern standards of political correctness bar them from making certain jokes, Black said, what they really mean is that they can no longer evade audience pushback.
“The answer isn’t that the world is too soft,” he said, but rather that previously acceptable forms of racist comedy are now viewed as “so stupid” that many audiences no longer have an appetite for them.
Some comics online did not specifically call out Hinchcliffe’s jokes at the rally but shared broader thoughts about comedians’ crossing the line.
On Monday, comedian Anthony Jeselnik posted a clip on TikTok of himself talking about how good comedy should induce laughter, instead of anger. The video has been widely circulated across social media platforms, where people suggested he was referring to Hinchcliffe. Jeselnik did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Comedian Marc Maron also lambasted his fellow comics in a blog post Monday, specifically calling out those in the industry who have been inviting “shameless, self-proclaimed white supremacists and fascists on their show to joke around.” Maron, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, did not name anyone in the post.
As part of his campaign, Trump has regularly appeared on podcasts hosted by comedians known for their conservative-leaning — but not overtly right-wing — counterculture appeal. Recently, he has sat down for interviews with the likes of Joe Rogan, Andrew Schulz and Theo Von.
Hinchcliffe, who has appeared on Rogan’s podcast numerous times, is a prominent name in Rogan’s circle of comedian podcasters. Rogan, a former sitcom star and stand-up comedian, has built a robust following as an unlikely political pundit. The audience for “The Joe Rogan Show” is 81% men, according to the public opinion and data company YouGov.
Some online have also begun to speculate about whether Rogan played a role in getting Hinchcliffe to speak at Trump’s rally. On an August episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan said Trump should hire Hinchcliffe to “write bangers” for him on the road.
But Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico landed poorly across both political parties.
In a statement Sunday, Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said: “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., and Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., were among the lawmakers who expressed outrage at the Puerto Rico joke.
While most comedians did not come to Hinchcliffe’s defense, “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart said such jokes should have been expected from a comedian like Hinchcliffe.
“Obviously, in retrospect, having a roast comedian come to a political rally a week before Election Day and roasting a key demographic … probably not the best decision by the campaign politically,” Stewart said in his segment Monday. “But to be fair, the guy’s just really doing what he does.”
To satire writer and stand-up comic Ginny Hogan, what made Hinchcliffe’s joke so unfunny was the lack of any apparent punch line beyond the pure shock factor of racism.
“I think it’s OK to push boundaries if you’re funny. The point of comedy is to make people laugh,” Hogan said. But with Hinchcliffe’s joke, she said, “it almost just felt like he was saying, ‘I don’t like Puerto Ricans,’ which is so clearly offensive. Sometimes humor can cut across edgy content to make it more palatable, but there was no humor there, so it wasn’t palatable at all.”
Stand-up comic Jake Flores, host of the “Pod Damn America” podcast, said the kind of boundary comics like Hinchcliffe like to push is defined by public opinion rather than concrete consequences.
“The resistance that they feel is a boundary there is just people maybe saying, ‘Hey, you shouldn’t do this thing that’s mostly harmful and not that interesting anymore,’” Flores said, adding, “If you criticize them on the basis that what they said isn’t funny or just sucks as a joke, instead of engaging with that criticism as it stands, which I think would be a losing battle, they will sort of reframe it to: You’re offended by me. Anyone that doesn’t like what I’m doing must be offended.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Black, who said that if the sole purpose of a joke is to stir shock and outrage, it’s “not a good enough joke to justify its own existence.”
“So the question that I would ask Tony would be: What else are you trying to say?” he said. “Because all that’s left is the racism at that point, and you want me to be shocked at the racism, but the fact of the matter is you accomplished your goal, but you didn’t make me laugh.”
