American comedian Tony Hinchcliffe stirred up controversy at a Trump rally after he referred to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage.” Hinchcliffe, who is widely known for his dark humor, was one of the openers for former President Donald Trump at his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, October 27, 2024.
Hinchcliffe, who hosts his podcast Kill Tony, opened the rally by saying:
“There’s a lot going on. I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
The quip was widely perceived as racist by several folks, including Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign who characterized the remarks as, “vile racist tirade against Latinos.” On the heels of the backlash, Hinchcliffe’s past controversies resurfaced online. Several people highlighted the 2021 incident when he was documented making insensitive remarks toward Chinese-American comedian Peng Dang. The incident occurred at a comedy show in Austin, Texas.
Shortly after Peng Dang concluded his set and introduced Hinchcliffe, the latter walked up to the stage and hurled a racist slur at the Chinese-American comedian, before proceeding to mimic a Chinese accent. He then berated the crowd for laughing at Dang’s performance. Hinchliffe continued:
“Chinese people find out we have flying bats every night and here they come.” Switching to a Chinese accent he added "flying soup.”
Hinchcliffe then singled out audience members in the crowd, who seemingly didn’t laugh at his imitation and said:
"Liberal chicks just holding strong can't even smile at this huh? No way we can't even bend, this guy is being serious. He must have hate in his blood. We live so far east of the 35. How can I look my Asian nerd barista in the eyes tomorrow if I laugh at this."'
Chinese-American comedian Peng Dang once called out Tony Hinchcliffe over 2021 controversial jokes
In 2021, Comedian Peng Dang called out comic Tony Hinchcliffe after he referred to him with a racial slur during the Austin show and made offensive jokes about the Asian community.
According to USA Today, Hinchcliffe's remarks were made public after Dang shared a clip of the interaction on Twitter. Dang later told the outlet he was "shocked" by Hinchcliffe's remarks. He added:
"Tony never came up to me, talked to me or apologized. I don't think he thinks that was offensive.”
After the video went viral online, several people including comedian Kath Barbadoro criticized Tony Hinchcliffe over the disparaging remarks toward Asians. She said:
"Like the main problem is obviously racism but talking about another comic like that is so (expletive) rude + hypocritical."
Comedian Samantha Ruddy noted:
"In the coming days, people will decry the backlash against Tony Hinchcliffe being cruel to his MC Peng as 'cancel culture.' They'll say nobody can take a joke. There was no joke. No misdirection. No wink. Just angry he has to share the stage with someone who isn't a white guy."
In a podcast interview, Dang said Tony Hinchcliffe called the audience “race traitors” over laughing at Dang’s jokes. When the podcast host questioned why would Hinchcliffe call the audience that, Dang said that perhaps the comedian was offended by his jokes about white people.
Dang continued:
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“If you watch my set, my stuff was pretty mild, my stuff was not aggressive at all. I was talking about how I had a friend, a basketball player from Slovakia, and how he acts better than other immigrants but he doesn't speak much English. So I was making fun of him.”
Dang said his set was not offensive toward white people, and the things Hinchcliffe said were pretty shocking.
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