Fox & Friends Defends ‘Off Color’ Comment Told at Trump MAGA Rally: ‘Its Comedy!’
Fox & Friends praised former President Donald Trump’s Sunday night rally at Madison Square Garden and even found time to defend what they described as an “offensive” comment made by a comedian before Trump spoke.
The Trump campaign is distancing from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe after he joked about Puerto Rico as a “floating pile of garbage” during his set at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Hinchliffe’s act included multiple controversial jokes, focusing mainly on immigration and Latino and Black voters.
“Republicans are the party with a good sense of humor,” Hinchcliffe’s remark began. He added that a lot is happening in the world and added, “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.”
Even GOP Sen. Rick Scott said the joke “bombed” at the rally.
Monday morning’s Fox & Friends opened with nearly 12 minutes of gushing praise about the rally from its co-hosts until Steve Doocy mentioned the controversy.
“There was a comic who made some offensive comments about Latinos and Puerto Ricans and African-Americans and others,” Doocy noted. “And he’s already been denounced by Republicans and by the campaign. But unfortunately for the Trump campaign, the Harris campaign has denounced it and mobilized influential Puerto Rican influencers like Bad Bunny, who’s very big in the Puerto Rican community in the Latino community, he put out something on Instagram, and so did Ricky Martin with millions of followers. And he wrote, or he said, ‘This is what they think of us. Vote for Kamala Harris.'”
“That was part of the pre-show; that was two hours before the president spoke,” Brian Kilmeade jumped in before pivoting to blast media coverage of the event. “It’s amazing, the cover of The New York Times [read] ‘Trump at Garden, a closing carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism.’ Only somebody who works for the Harris campaign pretending to be a reporter for The New York Times would write something like that.”
“You don’t point out that RFK, [from] the most famous Democratic family, actually was one of the featured speakers around,” he added. “The most famous inventor in the world, Elon Musk. That stands out? No. A comedian with a successful podcast. You lose some off-color.”
“But you lose goodwill when before that rally even started, they called it a Nazi rally. Before they even took the stage, they had already said that it was going to be a racist rally,” offered Lawrence Jones. “Number two, maybe it’s just me, Ainsley, I have a dark sense of humor, you know, And so I, like… maybe this was not the appropriate format for the comedian to be there? But it’s comedy.”
Later in the show, Trump spox Karoline Leavitt joined the co-hosts and Doocy brought up the brewing controversy. “You know, this morning, mainstream media has picked up on the comic’s comments, which were offensive, have been denounced by the campaign and everybody else. What went on with that?” Leavitt’s comments echoed those made by Kilmeade earlier.
“Look, it was a comedian who made a joke in poor taste,” she replied. “Obviously, that joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or our campaign. And I think it is sad that the media will pick up on one joke that was made by a comedian rather than the truths that were shared by the phenomenal list of speakers that we had,” before listing some notable MAGA luminaries in attendance.
“The crowd, they didn’t mind,” she said of the racist jokes. “Again, it was a diverse group of people. The joke fell flat, but the crowd was there because they know who President Trump is and they know he wants to be a president for all Americans.”
Watch above via Fox News.
