The comedian who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally just before the 2024 election finally admitted why he took the gig in the first place—and it wasn’t just for the “paycheck.”
“I did it, literally, to hopefully get some, hopefully if only 10,000, not to mention a hundred thousand, maybe 200 if we’re lucky, actual people to vote for him,” Tony Hinchcliffe told Bill Maher on Club Random in a new interview from over the weekend. He had previously kept his political opinions under wraps.
Hinchcliffe’s ill-fated quip, which was widely condemned as racist and was thought to have risked Trump’s support among Latinos, seemed to be a major gaffe for the Trump campaign at the time. Trump even tried to downplay Hinchcliffe’s association with the campaign after his team selected him to perform at the rally, telling Fox News that Hinchcliffe “probably shouldn’t have been there.”
Hinchcliffe, for his part, never revealed whether or not he supported Trump before or after he made his appearance at the rally. Even Maher was surprised at Hinchcliffe’s answer when he asked if the comedian showed up for Trump for the “opportunity” or “paycheck.” Hinchcliffe was adamant that it was neither.
“Oh, so you did want people to vote for Trump?” Maher asked, to which Hinchcliffe replied, “Yes. Without a doubt.” He added that he thinks Trump “gets a weird, weird, weird rap in this world, man,” and went on to express his previously muted admiration for the president to Maher.
“When I was going in to do that rally, the goal, it wasn’t just to swing a few thousand votes hopefully, or whoever listens to my podcast or whoever liked my silly performance on the Tom Brady roast or whatever,” he said, “It was also to f—ing have the president go, ‘That was cool. Thanks man. That awesome, I liked your set, you got the crowd going.’”
Hinchcliffe’s jokes at the rally were so widely condemned that his future prospects seemed unclear, as there was also Republican outcry following his comments. But after Trump won the election, and with more Latino support than his opponent, Hinchcliffe signed a new deal with Netflix to bring his Kill Tony specials and another stand-up special to the streamer. The comedian told Maher on Club Random that he’s not one of “far-right crazy people” listeners may think he is, despite his Trump fandom.
“We’re all pot smoking, pro-choice,” he said of himself and his Trump-supporting buddies. “If you’re gonna call us far-right crazy people, you have to realize we’re all formerly registered Democrat voters, and so is Rogan and so is Elon and so is Trump.”
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