Last night on HBO‘s Real Time, Bill Maher shared his thoughts about comments made by Donald Trump‘s comedian about Puerto Rico at the candidate’s recent Madison Square Garden rally.
The host worries that backlash to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe‘s joke at the campaign event, in which he called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean,” makes Democrats “look weak.”
“What the Trump people did at this rally — it’s so Trump — they hired an insult comic,” said Maher. “Really, he went up there and did very insulting things. I’d never heard of him, but this is his act he does all the time. And he told a really demeaning joke about Puerto Rico. … It didn’t even go over with the Trump crowd. They said, ‘Look, we didn’t come here to hear vicious remarks from an insult comic. We came here to hear it from the candidate.’”
During his roundtable discussion with Tim Miller and Michael Moynihan, Maher worried that the outrage in response made “the Democrats look weak because they can’t take a joke.” He was mostly commenting on President Joe Biden calling Trump supporters “garbage” in response, but Biden has since clarified that he was referring to the joke about Puerto Rico.
We don't know who's gonna win this election. They say you can flip a coin, with a margin of error plus or minus Joe Biden's ability to shut the f**k up. #GarbageElection pic.twitter.com/E17gxMlMjC
— Real Time with Bill Maher (@RealTimers) November 2, 2024
“Well, it was insulting,” he added. “But look, I have to defend my profession. I’m a comic, I’m a free speech [supporter]. … But this guy’s an insult comic. Why he’s at this particular [event], it’s like bringing cocaine to a funeral.”
Maher says Republicans are also weak for taking offense to Biden’s comment, saying, “They are just as big snowflakes, they are. Because, if I did that joke in reverse and instead of Puerto Rico, said Staten Island, they would have had a s— fit. They would have found that completely unacceptable.”
Following Trump’s MSG rally, Kamala Harris gave a speech in front of the White House on Tuesday to an estimated 75,000 attendees.
“These United States of America, we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators,” she said. “The United States of America is the greatest idea of humanity ever devised, a nation big enough to encompass all our dreams, strong enough to withstand any fracture or fissure between us, and fearless enough to imagine a future of possibilities.”
The vice president added, “I pledge to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your life better. I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress… And to people who disagree with me — unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I will give them a seat at the table.”