‘Kill Tony’ Showers JD Vance With Praise For Defending His Trump Rally Jokes in Bill Maher Interview

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe praised Vice President JD Vance as a “badass” on Sunday for defending him during media backlash over a controversial joke told at a Trump rally in the final days of the 2024 election.

Hinchcliffe, speaking with Bill Maher on the Club Random Podcast, recounted the fallout from a joke he told at Madison Square Garden in October. 

The comedian had appeared onstage during a rally to open for then-candidate Donald Trump.

He told the crowd, “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there is literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico?”

The joke drew immediate criticism from the left with many labeling Hinchcliffe a “racist” during the final week of the campaign.

Some on the right also attempted to distance Trump from Hinchcliffe after the bit.

During his chat with Maher, the Kill Tony host asked, “Have you gotten to meet JD Vance?”

Maher replied, “No, never met JD.”

“I gotta tell ya, all that I know about him is that this guy’s a badass because when my stuff was going down that week, Trump wasn’t – he was kinda off rallies, he was off, he just layin’ low for a bit, and JD Vance was taking the questions,” Hinchcliffe said. He added:

He was out there kinda doin’ little rallies and taking questions from the people. And every single day, and trust me, I was watching like a hawk, and we get sent the clips or whatever, of whatever just happened. They would ask them, what do you think about the racist comments from – the comment from the speaker. They were calling me everything but a comedian. They could not say the word comedian, which, which I think really, I think it really backfired.

Maher said earlier in the interview that he found the joke humorous and criticized people who were offended by it as too sensitive.

Watch above via the Club Random Podcast.