If That Puerto Rico Joke Doesn’t Cost Trump, JD Vance’s Reaction Will

The Trump campaign is still doing damage control after a comedian at his hate rally in New York City made a wildly racist joke about Puerto Rico.

When asked about the joke on Monday, Vance claimed hadn’t “seen” it, which seems highly unlikely given the moment’s virality and the fact that he is running for vice president.

“I’ve heard about the joke; I haven’t actually seen the joke,” Vance said after being asked if the series of racist jokes was setting the right tone for the campaign just one week out from the election.

“Maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke, as you said; maybe it’s not. I haven’t seen it,” he continued. “I’m not gonna comment on the specificity of the joke … but I think that we have to stop getting offended at every little thing in the United States of America, I’m just so over it.”

The series of jokes from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump’s rally already looks like it could cost him the election. Hinchcliffe used his stage time to make vulgar statements about Latino immigrant families, said that he carved Halloween watermelons with a Black man, and, most notably, stated that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.”

Vance’s reaction was unwise and hypocritical. This is the same guy who was deeply bothered just by being called “weird” and lied about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets, but it’s the rest of us who need to toughen up. While Trump campaign spokesperson Daniella Alvarez has said the “joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Vance refused to even acknowledge any issue with the joke. While the actual electoral fallout from these comments is yet to be seen, Vance’s flippancy certainly won’t help the Trump campaign.

Joe Rogan says he is still open to interviewing Kamala Harris—if she’ll drop everything and come to him.

Responding to rumors on both sides of the aisle, the podcast host took to X in the wee hours of Tuesday morning to clear up some confusion about why his proposed interview with the vice president hasn’t materialized. TLDR: He’ll only speak with Harris on his terms.

“For the record the Harris campaign has not passed on doing the podcast. They offered a date for Tuesday, but I would have had to travel to her and they only wanted to do an hour. I strongly feel the best way to do it is in the studio in Austin,” wrote Rogan, adding that his “sincere wish is to just have a nice conversation and get to know her as a human being. I really hope we can make it happen.”

With only a week left until Election Day and a packed schedule of rallies, interviews, and campaign events, it seems that Harris may not have Rogan’s audience of mostly Republican and independent young men top of mind. But this lukewarm defense from Rogan makes it clear that he wants to put all the blame on Harris, when really it’s also his stubbornness at fault.

Perhaps Donald Trump set up an impossible standard with his interview for The Joe Rogan Experience, as the Republican nominee backed out of several previously scheduled events to travel to the Austin podcast studio. During his three-hour interview with Trump, Rogan allowed the former president to lie to his millions of viewers about immigration, the economy, and the 2020 election, with Trump stating, “I won that second election so easy.”

With Harris’s tentative cancellation, Rogan’s schedule is wide open, and so the podcaster will now instead interview Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance on Wednesday morning, rather than make any sacrifices to interview the sitting vice president and Democratic nominee for president. Vance will travel to Austin to appear on the show.

Donald Trump’s campaign reportedly stopped comedian Tony Hinchcliffe from calling Kamala Harris a “c*nt” onstage at his rally at Madison Square Garden, raising serious concerns about the severely racist jokes they did allow.

The Bulwark reported Monday that Hinchcliffe’s set had been reviewed by Trump’s campaign, even though the former president’s team claimed they had not vetted all of the comedian’s remarks.

Four top campaign insiders told The Bulwark that one particularly unsavory joke was spotted when Hinchcliffe’s speech was loaded into the teleprompter.

“He had a joke calling Harris a ‘c*nt,’” said one campaign insider, who was involved in discussions about Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden. “Let’s say it was a red flag.”

Hinchcliffe removed the joke from his set when asked by Trump’s staff. However, Hinchcliffe’s other wildly offensive jokes likening Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage,” mocking Latinos for not using birth control, saying he had “carved watermelons” with his Black “buddies,” and calling Palestinians “rock-throwers” still made it into the set.

After the rally, Vianca Rodríguez, the deputy director of Hispanic communications for the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign, said that “they don’t have absolute control” over what the rally’s many speakers said onstage.

The campaign sources told The Bulwark that they hadn’t spotted the other objectionable punch lines because they had all been ad-libbed. Some lines, such as Hinchcliffe’s racist remark about a Black man in the audience, did appear to be riffs, but they still could have been planned by the comedian.

Clearly, Trump’s campaign had some control, as they prevented Hinchcliffe from using profane language. And what they did allow was the horrific joke about Puerto Rico that overshadowed Trump’s entire appearance.

Hinchcliffe reportedly practiced that joke at the comedy club The Stand the night before, where it hadn’t done very well, either. He reportedly said multiple times during his Saturday night set that his jokes would earn a better reaction “tomorrow at the rally.”

Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement Monday that “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” referring to Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico, leaving the other racist remarks unaddressed.

Without calling Harris the c-word, there were still plenty of hateful remarks made about her. One speaker was David Rem, a sanitation worker who was billed as Trump’s childhood friend (though they reportedly met for the first time just two weeks ago, per Newsweek). Rem called Harris the “Antichrist.”

And Trump’s campaign doesn’t seem totally opposed to using the slur. Elon Musk’s America PAC shared a 34-second ad Monday that referred to Harris as “the c-word” multiple times.

Donald Trump is ready to start the steal.

In a Truth Social post late Monday night, Trump began sowing doubt about election results in Pennsylvania just days into early voting.

“Wow! York County, Pennsylvania, received THOUSANDS of potentially FRAUDULENT Voter Registration Forms and Mail-In Ballot Applications from a third party group,” he wrote, grossly misconstruing a normal election proceeding.

It is true that York County’s Office of Elections received thousands of voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications. There is nothing beyond the pale happening. The forms were dropped off by a nonpartisan voter-turnout organization called the Voter Registration Project, also known as Everybody Votes.

“As with all submissions, our staff follows a process for ensuring all voter registrations and mail-in ballot requests are legal,” said York County President Commissioner Julie Wheeler to the York Daily Record, noting that the county will examine the forms and applications to look for any possible fraud. “We’re in a phase now where we need to do our homework before we go and make accusations when we don’t have the data to back it up.”

Meanwhile, Trump also spread lies about nearby Lancaster County, writing in the same post that the county was “caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person. Really bad ‘stuff.’ WHAT IS GOING ON IN PENNSYLVANIA??? Law Enforcement must do their job, immediately!!! WOW!!!”

Again, Trump is highlighting a standard process of ensuring election integrity and painting it as a large-scale nefarious scheme by Democrats. Lancaster County officials are combing through 2,500 last-minute voter registrations and identifying any red flags. After seeing some forms with false names and similar handwriting, concerns “were raised during the staff’s normal process to review and enter applications into [a state database] and law enforcement was alerted,” the local election board said in a statement. There is no evidence that there are thousands of fake ballots “all written by the same person,” as Trump claimed.

As Election Day looms, expect more of these extreme exaggerations—especially in swing states—from Trump and his Republican friends.

Donald Trump and his presidential campaign are facing a huge backlash over a comedian’s racist joke about Puerto Rico at his rally at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday.

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at the rally ahead of Trump’s speech, forcing the campaign to go into damage control and condemn the remarks. But Trump hasn’t personally commented or posted any such condemnation on his Truth Social page, and the fallout is growing. 

Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania are reportedly furious over the comments, according to Politico. A nonpartisan group representing Puerto Ricans in the state plans to circulate a letter urging its members to vote against Trump, while other members of the community were forwarding footage of the joke on WhatsApp and urging action.

The president of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Puerto Rican Agenda, Roberto L. Lugo, told Politico that the group plans to release a letter condemning the comments and urging Puerto Ricans in the state not to vote for Trump, saying that he was “really disturbed” by the joke.

“I’m not a Republican, I’m not a Democrat, I’m independent,” Lugo said. “But at this point, it’s not about political, partisan issues. It is about the respect and honor our Puerto Ricans and Latinos deserved as citizens and legal residents of this country, that’s the issue.”

Protests are being planned for Trump’s Tuesday rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which has one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state and is a majority-Latino city. Plus, the PPL Center, where the rally is being held, is in the middle of Allentown’s Puerto Rican neighborhood. 

A school district in the city has even canceled classes on Tuesday.

Even Pennsylvania Republicans who support Trump, like state Representative Ryan Mackenzie, have come out against the joke.

“The comments made by this so-called ‘comedian’ at Madison Square Garden weren’t funny, they were offensive and wrong,” said Mackenzie, who is in a close race for U.S. Congress against Democratic Representative Susan Wild.

The archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico’s largest city, is demanding an apology from Trump, as is the chairman of Puerto Rico’s Republican Party, Angel Cintróni.

“If Donald Trump doesn’t apologize to Puerto Rico, I’m not going to vote for him,” Cintrón said on Jugando Pelota Dura, a Puerto Rican talk show Monday. Cintrón helped to secure Trump’s nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in July.

An apology may be too little and too late, though.

“If Donald Trump really wanted to disassociate himself with that, the first thing he would have said when he came onto the stage at Madison Square Garden was, ‘Hey, listen, I heard that person’s attempt at humor. It was not funny. I stand with the Puerto Rican community,’” Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro told a radio station in northeast Pennsylvania on Monday. “He didn’t do that.”