Tony Hinchcliffe has one unexpected ally: Jon Stewart.
The host of “The Daily Show” used his opening monologue to defend the controversial roast comedian, and instead put the blame for his viral remarks on the Trump campaign for inviting him in the first place.
Hinchcliffe was one of the speakers at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday. During his set, he likened Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage.” His remarks were instantly met with a backlash from both Republicans and Democrats, including condemntations from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin.
“Now obviously in retrospect, having a roast comedian come to a political rally a week before election day and roasting a key voting demographic, probably not the best decision by the campaign politically,” Stewart said on Monday night. “But to be fair, the guy is really just doing what he does.”
He then played several clips of Hinchcliffe performing at Netflix’s “The Roast of Tom Brady” to prove his point. During the event, Hinchcliffe called Jeff Ross “so Jewish he only watches football for the coin toss,” Rob Gronkowski “the Nazi that kept burning himself on the ovens” and Kevin Hart “so small that when his ancestors picked cotton, they called it deadlifting.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Terrible. Boo. Yes,” Stewart said, trying to hold back laughter. “There’s something wrong with me. I find that guy very funny. I’ms sorry. I don’t know what to tell ya.”
Stewart then said that bringing Hinchcliffe to a rally “and having him not do racist jokes, that would be like bringing Beyoncé to a rally and not having — oh.”
That wasn’t the only joke Stewart made about Beyoncé not performing at her highly anticipated appearance during last Friday’s Kamala Harris rally. Instead, the Grammy-winning singer said, “Your vote is one of the most valuable tools, and we need you.”
“No singing? Just a heartfelt statement on the importance of the election?” Stewart asked. “F–k it, I’m voting for Trump.”
Instead of spending any more time dwelling on Hinchcliffe, Stewart devoted the rest of his opening monologue to analyzing Trump’s xenophobic remarks and criticizing his mass deportation plan. Watch the full monologue above.
