Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed he didn’t hear the offensive jokes a comedian made at his rally in Madison Square Garden.
The former president’s stunning defense came two days after the comic, Tony Hinchcliffe, set off a political firestorm with racist material calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and referencing watermelon while talking about a Black audience member.
“I don’t know him, someone put him up there,” Trump told ABC News of Hinchcliffe. “I don’t know who he is.”
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The network reported that Trump insisted he hadn’t heard any of the offensive remarks, despite the fact that he attended the rally Sunday and they’ve been repeated endlessly in the media since the event. “When asked what he made of them, he did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn’t hear the comments,” ABC reported.
Trump’s bizarre decision to plead ignorance also comes after his own campaign aides have given multiple statements claiming Hinchcliffe’s comments don’t represent the views of the GOP nominee.
“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, quickly told the media after Hinchcliffe’s set.
As the backlash continued to gather pace—including from Republicans—Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt made another attempt on Monday at distancing her boss from the Puerto Rico line.
“It’s America and Americans love comedy and it’s an expression of First Amendment rights,” Leavitt said in a NewsNation interview. “ “But look, it was a joke that was done in poor taste.”
Trump’s absurd denial also comes after a report Monday claimed that his campaign had prior knowledge of the offensive remarks and had even gone to the trouble of excising one—in which Hinchcliffe would have insulted Vice President Kamala Harris in extremely coarse language.
The report from The Bulwark cited top Trump campaign sources claiming that other objectionable jokes weren’t spotted in the draft Hinchcliffe submitted to the campaign before he delivered the remarks “because they were ad-libbed.”
