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Thursday, November 21, 2024

USA

Trump’s Cabinet of Dangerous Fanatics and Kooks

Thursday 21 November 2024, by Dan La Botz

President-elect Donald Trump has rapidly chosen loyalists for cabinet positions and other high offices. The Senate must vote to confirm cabinet members and his choices are controversial even among Republicans. In some cases, Trump’s capricious, unvetted picks are likely to lead to governmental chaos if they are confirmed. Comics and journalists have referred to the new cabinet as “Trump’s clown car.” The clowns, however are not funny; they’re frightening.

Perhaps most outrageously, Trump has chosen Representative Matt Gaetz, for Attorney General. In 2020 Gaetz was accused of child sex trafficking and statutory rape for taking a 17-year-old high school student across state lines to have sex with her. Both the Justice Department and the House Ethics Committee investigated the matter but he was not charged.

Trump’s choice for Secretary of Energy is Chris Wright, the CEO of Liberty Energy, a Denver-based fracking firm. He will be a supporter of the fossil fuel industry and an opponent of efforts to cut back on greenhouse gases. Last year Wright said, “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”

Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an anti-vaxxer to be Secretary of Health and Human Service, a department with a $1.7 trillion budget and tremendous influence on health policies. His choice has been widely criticized by health scientists and physicians.

Trump ran on the immigration issue saying he would close the border and begin deportations on day one, and to deal with it he has chosen white nationalist Steven Miller as chief of policy for homeland security and a tough-talking cop named Thomas Homan to be Border Czar. Homan was responsible for Trump’s family separation policy during Trump’s first term. They will deal with immigrants brutally.

Turning to foreign policy, for Secretary of Defense Trump has picked Pete Hegseth, a veteran Iraq and Afghanistan, a major in the National Guard and a TV host for far-right Fox News in 2014. Hegseth, who never managed a large organization, will be in charge of the 3.4 million employees of the Department of Defense. His choice has outraged members of Congress and former military officers, in part because of his support for soldiers accused of war crimes. He says the military is too “woke” and opposes its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, which he says have weakened military values. He opposes too putting women in combat positions. Hegeth was accused of sexual assault when at a Republican women’s event, and though he was not charged, paid off the woman. Hegseth has a tattoo, Deus Vult (God’s Will) and wears a Jerusalem cross, both symbols of the white nationalist movement.

Trump choice for Director of National Intelligence, former Representative Tulsi Gabbard, has been called a “Russian agent” and a “traitor” by a U.S. Representative because of her support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine She also met with Russian-backed dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

As U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Trump picked Baptist Minister Mike Huckabee the former governor of Arkansas. Huckabee fully supports Israel’s right to control the West Bank, a name he rejects preferring the Biblical Judea and Samaria. He says there is no West Bank, no occupation, and no such thing as a Palestinian.

Finally, we have Elon Musk, the tech mogul and world’s wealthiest man, who gave a least $132 million to Trump’s campaign, has been chosen together with pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to head a new Department of Government Efficiency. Musk has something like a trillion dollars in government contracts.

Cabinet appointments have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, though Trump may attempt to avoid this by “recess appointment” made when the Senate is not in session. Senators do not seem to have the integrity and courage to stand up to him. Trump’s clowns could blow up the government.

17 November 2024

International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Adulting, nerdiness and the importance of single-panel comics

Author cites ‘The Far Side’ as one comic that broke barriers

Ohio State University

COLUMBUS, Ohio – While comics have become a culturally popular and widely studied art form in recent decades, one format remains overlooked: the single-panel comic.

Comics like “The Family Circus,” “Ziggy” and “Little Lulu” are often seen as simplistic and not worthy of critical attention, argues Michelle Ann Abate, author of the new book Singular Sensations: A Cultural History of One-Panel Comics in the United States.

“There tends to be a belief there isn’t much to analyze there. You don’t need a lot of critical thinking skills to see ‘Little Lulu’ slipping on banana peels and get the joke,” said Abate, who is a professor of literature for children and young adults at The Ohio State University’s College of Education and Human Ecology.

And while some one-panel comics do rely on slapstick gags, wordplay, and simple puns, Abate said she found while researching Singular Sensations that there’s much more to many of the one-panels.

Even comics like “Ziggy” that don’t have a lot of cultural cachet have something to offer when read critically.

“‘Ziggy’ was often about the hassles of ‘adulting’ before adulting was even a word. ‘Ziggy’ has a lot of clever humor about the everyday setbacks that most people can relate to,” she remarked. “There’s a lot that resonates even now, decades later.”

As Abate notes, perhaps no other single-panel comic has been more acclaimed and loved than “The Far Side” by Gary Larson.

“It was among the first places in our culture that really celebrated and showcased nerdiness.”

While “The Far Side” doesn’t have a recurring cast of characters, it did have recurring types of characters: mainly nerds of all kinds, from geeky middle-aged scientists to dorky adolescent schoolchildren.

At the time when Larson started “The Far Side” in 1980, nerdiness was not at the center of popular culture and valued in the way it is now, according to Abate.

Even though Larson’s series relied on wordplay and puns, “it was the kind of puns and wordplay that nerds in particular would enjoy and that you don’t see in other single-panel comics before it.”

But it wasn’t just the nerdiness that made “The Far Side” stand out, she said: It was the aesthetics, the way Larson drew the characters, particularly the humans. As one critic said, “his people are grotesque.”

The very first “Far Side” comic showed the combination of nerdy subject matter and awkward, gangly, and even sometimes “ugly” humans that made Larson famous. The foreground showed two crabs talking to one another, while two human youngsters build a sandcastle in the background.

The two crabs were drawn to look friendly and adorable, Abate said. But the kids were distorted and didn’t look cute like the children depicted in most comics. And the caption was true nerdiness: One crab was telling the other, “Yes … they are quite strange during the larval stage.”

The way humans were drawn in “The Far Side” was novel at the time.

“In Larson’s series, no child was cute, no man was handsome, and no woman was beautiful by conventional standards,” Abate wrote.

“The odd, unusual and even unsightly appearance of ‘The Far Side’s’ human characters did not distract readers from the content of the panel. On the contrary, such depictions echoed and even amplified the theme, topic or message.”

Abate said Larson’s aesthetic style defied a longstanding trend in American newspaper comics. Much of the emphasis has been on making the case for comics as fine art. And indeed, many cartoonists, especially graphic novelists, are known for the beauty and skill behind their incredible artwork. But Larson’s drawing is intentionally unflattering and awkward.

“It just really went against the grain of what was happening in comics,” she said.

“It gets readers to think about the aesthetics of ugliness and — paradoxically — what might be called the beauty of ugliness. Moreover, it also invites us to ponder what we deem ugly and why. It may even get us to learn to value what we thought of as ugly, rather than denigrate it.”

While many people have rightly focused on Larson’s impact on nerd culture, Abate hopes to call more attention to his contribution in the realm of comics aesthetics. The awkward, unflattering, and gangly way that Larson rendered his nerdy characters, Abate argues, is just as important as the nerdiness of their personalities. Many online comics — such as “The Oatmeal” and “Hyperbole and a Half” — render their human figures in ways can be seen as echoing and even extending Larson’s style.

Beyond just “The Far Side,” Abate said that single-panel comics deserve more recognition as an important type of cartoon art. Many of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed titles over the years — from “The Far Side,” “Ziggy,” and “The Family Circus” to “Heathcliff,” “Marmaduke,” and cartoons in The New Yorker — have been single-panel. Comics as we know them and especially as we love them in the United States would not be the same without the single-panel form.

Singular Sensations examines an array of popular one-panel comics from the 1890s through the present day. In addition to her discussion of “The Far Side,” she has chapters on political cartoons, comics from The New Yorker, “The Family Circus,” “The Yellow Kid,” “Little Lulu,” the groundbreaking series “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger” by Jackie Ormes, “Ziggy,” and “Bizarro.”

“Single-panel comics are not only comics,” Abate’s book asserts, “they are examples of the medium at its most concentrated, compact and concise.”

Gary Larson — and his nerdy characters — would likely agree.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

‘F*** These Racists’: Geraldo Rivera Tears Into MAGA After Trump’s MSG Rally

Will Neal
Mon 28 October 2024

Geraldo Rivera

Geraldo Rivera, a former close friend of Donald Trump, issued a stark warning to Latino men who might be thinking of voting for the Republican candidate in the upcoming presidential election.

“F--k these racists,” the former Fox News host posted to X late Sunday. “Latino men of good will, have pride in yourselves and your ancestors. A vote for Trump is a vote against self-respect.” Along with a number of fascistic Trump comments from recent weeks, Rivera’s post specifically referenced remarks from podcaster Tony Hinchliffe who described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage” at a Trump rally in New York City on Sunday.

Rivera’s own father was Puerto Rican and moved to New York where he met the broadcaster’s mother. Geraldo himself spent time living with his grandparents in Puerto Rico as a teenager. In 2008, he published a book which drew on his father’s story titled His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S.

“It’s a story that’s like so many tens of millions before and after us,” Rivera said the year after its publication. “All my Dad ever wanted was for us to grow up and be assimilated, to be Americans, real Americans.”

His scathing post warning Latino voters away from the former president comes after Rivera—a long-time Republican who has otherwise stood by Trump’s side through a litany of controversies over the years—recently publicly endorsed Kamala Harris, describing Trump as a “sore loser who cannot be trusted to honor the Constitution.”

Hinchcliffe’s jokes also referenced an offensive stereotype about Black people and further slandered Latinos, in crude terms, as people who “love making babies.”

U.S. President Donald Trump greets Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera (L) as he arrives aboard Air Force One, to survey hurricane damage, at Muniz Air National Guard Base in Carolina, Puerto Rico, U.S. October 3, 2017.

Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican musical superstar, shared a video from Harris’ Instagram account on his own story moments after Hinchcliffe delivered his remarks. The clip, in which Harris attacks Trump’s handling of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017, amounted to an announcement that Bad Bunny is supporting Harris, a source close to the musician told The Washington Post.

“I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he did not do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and a competent leader,” Harris says in the footage. “He abandoned the island, tried to block aid after back-to-back devastating hurricanes and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults.”

Fellow Puerto Rican artists Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez also shared the footage of Harris with their followers. Martin separately shared a clip of Hinchcliffe’s offensive comments, adding a caption in Spanish saying: “This is what they think of us.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who is also of Puerto Rican descent, also condemned the remarks on a Twitch stream alongside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. “When you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico ‘floating garbage,’ know that that’s what they think about you,” the congresswoman said on the stream.

Hinchcliffe replied to Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks to claim she has “no sense of humor” and claimed it was wild of Walz to “take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist.”

“I love Puerto Rico and vacation there,” Hinchcliffe added. “I made fun of everyone…watch the whole set. I’m a comedian Tim…might be time to change your tampon.”

“You don’t ‘love Puerto Rico,’” Ocasio-Cortez hit back. “You like drinking piña coladas. There’s a difference.”

Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, said in a statement to the Post: “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

Harris Moves To Capitalize On Puerto Rican Outrage Over Racist Joke At Trump Rally

Lilli Petersen
Mon 28 October 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign moved to capitalize on outrage following a comedian’s racist attempt at a joke targeted at Puerto Ricans at a rally for former President Donald Trump on Sunday, releasing an ad targeted at the community, who have a substantial presence in swing-state Pennsylvania.

The 30-second TV ad, which will air in key swing states, referenced both the “island of garbage” line from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and Trump’s infamous visit to the U.S. territory in the aftermath of 2017’s devastating hurricanes Irma and Maria, when the then-president chucked rolls of paper towels into a crowd of people who had gathered to receive vital emergency supplies. The Trump administration was widely criticized for what many saw as an inadequate response to the hurricanes, which killed an estimated 3,000 people on the island.

“I will never forget what Donald Trump did. He abandoned the island and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults,” a voiceover from Harris says as images of Trump tossing supplies are shown.

“Puerto Rico deserves better,” the ad says.

Though offensive remarks from Trump and his supporters are nothing new, Harris’ presidential campaign is hoping the specificity of Hinchcliffe’s joke ― targeting a specific community of Latino voters ― and its proximity to the election means it can make a difference in swing states, especially Pennsylvania.

The joke came as part of Trump’s wild rally Sunday night at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Speeches from a wide variety of Trumpworld operatives and supporters included now-standard attacks on migrants, suggestions that the United States has become a crime-riddled disaster and even echoes of an infamous 1939 Nazi rally at the same venue.

But Hinchcliffe provided the lowlight of the evening with a wildly racist comedy routine.

“These Latinos, they love making babies, too,” said Hinchcliffe, among the many speakers who filled up the five-plus hours before Trump appeared. “There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.”

“There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” he said later, as the crowd seemed to groan and chuckle uncomfortably.

The Trump campaign made a halfhearted attempt to distance itself from the “joke,” releasing a statement later that night saying that it did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

And vice presidential nominee JD Vance tried to do damage control on Monday. “Maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke; maybe it is not,” the Ohio senator said at a rally stop in Wisconsin. “But we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I’m so over it.”

But whether or not Vance is “so over it,” it’s clear that many, many other people are not.

A number of high-profile Latino celebrities and public figures quickly slammed the “joke,” including Puerto Rican musicians Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, all of whom have endorsed Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. “This is what they think of us,” Martin wrote in Spanish on his Instagram story, sharing a clip of Hinchcliffe.

“This was a hate rally,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who is Puerto Rican, said during a Wednesday morning appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when she was asked about the “island of garbage” remark.

“This was not just a presidential rally, this was not just a campaign rally,” she continued. “Donald Trump and that entire cadre of people up on that stage, Stephen Miller, et cetera, do not respect the law of the United States of America. And they either want to win this election or they are using rhetoric of taking it by force. That is what they mean, and that is what they are doing when they are inciting violence and hatred against Latinos, against Black Americans, against Americans who don’t have children.”

Indeed, the remarks fit into a staple of Trump’s campaign rhetoric: xenophobic fearmongering about immigrants and non-white people. In recent weeks, Vance and Trump have pushed weird and baseless claims that Haitian immigrants are eating household pets and that undocumented immigrants are going to illegally vote in massive numbers in order to steal the election in November. They have even seemed to endorse the white supremacist “great replacement theory,” which asserts there is conspiracy to bring immigrants to the United States to have babies in order to outnumber the white population.

“The Democrat Party has forgotten about Americans,” Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said at Sunday night’s rally. “Rather than cater to Americans, they decided, you know what, it would just be easier to replace them with people who would be reliable voters.”

Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. As of 2021, there were 5.8 million Puerto Ricans living in the United States, and, notably, they make up a substantial portion of the Latino vote in swing states including Georgia and Pennsylvania.

In Pennsylvania, a pivotal battleground for the 2024 election, Puerto Ricans make up about 8% of the total population. And in Georgia, where in 2021 Trump famously attempted to pressure officials after the election to “find” him the 11,780 votes he needed to win the state, there are around 87,000 Puerto Ricans of voting age.

Marc Anthony Says Of Trump Rally Swipe At Puerto Rico: “This I Won’t Forget”

Ted Johnson
Mon, October 28, 2024

Marc Anthony is the latest Puerto Rican recording artist to speak out against a Trump-supporting comedian’s swipe at the U.S. territory as “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.”

“This I won’t forget,” Anthony wrote on Instagram below a video of Tony Hinchcliffe’s remarks at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

More from Deadline

Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally Opens With Speakers Ranting About “F—ing Illegals,” Puerto Rico A “Floating Pile Of Garbage” And Kamala Harris As The “Antichrist”

Marc Maron Calls Out Comics Driving “The New Fascism” As Comedians Slam Trump Rally’s Tony Hinchcliffe

Anthony also posted video of Kamala Harris talking about her plans for Puerto Rico, and he reposted a video he made earlier this month in which he referred to Donald Trump’s previous remarks about the island.

“Even though some have forgotten, I remember what it was like when Donald Trump was president,” Anthony said. “I remember what he did and said about Puerto Rico, about our people.”

Anthony said that after Hurricane Maria “devastated our island, Trump blocked billions in relief while thousand died.” The video then featured a clip of Trump throwing paper towels at Puerto Ricans needing emergency assistance.

Anthony also reminded that Trump referred to some Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists,” and of his administration’s family separation policy.

Other entertainers, including Ricky Martin, also posted about Hinchcliffe’s remarks, while Jennifer Lopez and Bad Bunny expressed her support for Harris.

The vice president was asked about the rally earlier in the day, telling reporters, “It is just more of the same, and maybe more vivid than usual. Donald Trump spent the whole time trying to have Americans point the finger at each other, to fan the fuel of hate and division. And that is why people are exhausted with him.”

The Harris campaign also was up with an ad tied to Hinchcliffe’s remarks, while the Trump campaign tried to distance itself from the comedian’s remark. Up to now, polls had shown Trump making inroads with Latino voters.

“I’ve heard about the joke. I haven’t actually seen the joke that you mentioned,” JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, told reporters today. “…Can we all just take a chill pill, and take a joke from time to time?”

Hinchcliffe wasn’t the only speaker who generated a backlash. Another referred to Harris as the “antichrist,” and another said that she has “pimp handlers.” Tucker Carlson called her “Samoan-Malaysian” and a “low IQ former California prosecutor.”

‘Fox & Friends’ Immediately Walks Back Its Own Trump MSG Racism Claim
Sean Craig
Mon 28 October 2024

The cohosts of Fox & Friends speak with Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Well, that was fast.

Mere seconds after Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy acknowledged “offensive comments about Latinos and Puerto Ricans and African Americans” were made at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, his colleague Brian Kilmeade attacked journalists for reporting on those comments.

The Sunday rally’s first speaker was comedian and podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe, who made a series of vulgar jokes about groups the former president’s campaign is actively trying to woo in the days before the election.

That included a remark that Latinos “love making babies, there’s no pulling out, they come inside, just like they do to our country.” Hinchliffe also made a comment about Black people and watermelons, invoking a long-standing racist trope, and called the U.S. territory Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.”

“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement, addressing Hinchliffe’s comment on Puerto Rico.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Reps. María Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) were among the Republicans to condemn the mask-off MAGA spectacle.

On Monday’s Fox & Friends, Doocy was quick to point out the remarks and note the backlash from within the GOP.

“There was a comic who made some offensive comments about Latinos and Puerto Ricans and African-Americans and others,” he said, adding Hinchcliffe had been denounced by some Republicans and that even the Trump campaign distanced itself from him.

That did not stop Kilmeade from immediately stepping all over the moment in a baffling, instantaneous backpedal.

“It’s amazing, the cover of The New York Times: ‘Trump at Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism’” he said, reading a Times headline about the racist remarks at Trump’s rally mere seconds after his co-host acknowledged the racist remarks at Trump’s rally. “Only somebody who worked for the Harris campaign and [was] pretending to be a reporter for The New York Times would write something like that.”

Later during the broadcast, Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told the show that the Madison Square Garden crowd “didn’t mind” Hinchliffe’s jokes.

Most of Hinchliffe’s material fell flat and was met with indifference—though some bits prompted groans—in one of the more awkward speeches of the night.

That was an impressive feat given Trump supporter David Rem called Vice President Kamala Harris the “anti-Christ,” finfluencer Grant Cardone alleged Harris has “pimp handlers,” and radio personality Sid Rosenberg called Trump’s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton a “sick son of a b----.”

Fox & Friends host defends racist Puerto Rico joke at Trump’s MSG rally: ‘It’s comedy’

Katie Hawkinson

The Independen
Mon 28 October 2024

A Fox News host has defended a comedian who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at Donald Trump’s New York City rally.

Tony Hinchcliffe, comedian and host of the podcast Kill Tony, performed a set at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday. He made a series of jokes targetting Puerto Rico, Latinos and Black people.

“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,” Hinchcliffe told Trump’s suporters. “Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

Hinchcliffe also said that Latinos “love making babies, there’s no pulling out, they come inside, just like they do to our country.” He also commented on Black people and watermelons, referencing a long-standing racist trope.

Tony Hinchcliffe speaks at Donald Trump’s rally in New York City on Sunday. The comedian referred to Puerto Rico as a ‘floating island of garbage’ in his set, prompting immediate backlash and causing the Trump campaign to distance itself from him (AP)

Fox & Friends host Lawrence Jones defended his set after his colleague Steeve Doocy brought up the incident on Sunday’s episode of Fox & Friends, noting Hinchcliffe made some “offensive comments about Latinos and Puerto Rico.”

“Unfortunately for the Trump campaign, the Harris campaign has denounced it and mobilized influential Puerto Rican influencers like Bad Bunny,” Doocy said.

Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade then slammed critical media coverage of the event.

“It’s amazing, the cover of The New York Times, ‘Trump at Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism,’” Kilmeade said. “Only somebody who works for the Harris campaign pretending to be a reporter for The New York Times would write something like that.”

Jones responded by noting that Hinchcliffe’s set caused the campaign to “lose goodwill” but defended him, calling his remarks “comedy.”

“You lose goodwill when before that rally even started, they called it a Nazi rally,” Jones said. “Before they even took the stage, they had already said that it was going to be a racist rally.”

“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,” he added.

Trump’s campaign is now distancing itself from Hitchcliffe’s remarks, noting his joke ‘does not reflect the views’ of the former president (AFP via Getty Images)

Criticisms of Hinchcliffe’s performance are rolling in across social media, with celebrities and lawmakers alike weighing in.

Luis Fonsi, a Peurto Rican artist best known for his hit “Despacito,” denounced the “racist” joke on Instagram.

“It’s ok to have different views, and I respect those who think different than me…but going down this RACIST path ain’t it,” Fonsi wrote.

“We are not OK with this constant hate,” he continued. “It’s been abundantly clear that these people have no respect for us and yet they want our vote. OH yeah, and I purposely wrote this in English cause yes, we’re American too.”

Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin also shared the clip of Hinchcliffe’s remark, writing, “This is what they think of us. Vote for @kamalaharris.”

Trump’s own campaign is now distancing itself from Hinchcliffe.

“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” senior advisor Danielle Alvarez said in a statement.

Even Republican lawmakers are speaking out against Hinchcliffe.

“Disgusted by @TonyHinchcliffe’s racist comment calling Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” GOP Representative María Elvira Salazar wrote on X. “This rhetoric does not reflect GOP values. Puerto Rico sent 48,000+ soldiers to Vietnam, with over 345 Purple Hearts awarded. This bravery deserves respect.”

Republican Senator Rick Scott said the “joke bombed for a reason.”

“It’s not funny and it’s not true,” he posted on X. “Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans! I’ve been to the island many times. It’s a beautiful place. Everyone should visit! I will always do whatever I can to help any Puerto Rican in Florida or on the island.”

The Independent has contacted Hinchcliffe’s manager, Alex Murray, for comment.

People Are Genuinely Shocked By Geraldo Rivera's Tweet About That Comedian's Racist Comments About Puerto Rico

Matt Stopera
Mon, October 28, 2024

Donald Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden in NYC this weekend.

Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

Dr. Phil showed up.

Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images

Hulk Hogan struggled to rip his shirt off.

Twitter: @ArtCandee

Elon Musk shouted.

Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

And a comedian named Tony Hinchcliffe made a racist joke about Puerto Rico.

Michael S. Schwartz / WireImage

He said, "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."

Twitter: @Acyn

People (obviously) did not react positively to his comment.

Twitter: @AshaRangappa_

Geraldo Rivera's response in particular has gone super viral.