Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance downplayed a racist joke told at former President Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally — and said anyone who’s offended should “just take a chill pill.”
During a Monday campaign appearance in Wausau, Wisconsin, the freshman Ohio senator was asked by a reporter about a series of racist jokes by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”
Although the reporter didn’t repeat that remark, Trump’s running mate — who spoke at Sunday’s rally in New York City — said he hadn’t “actually seen the joke that you mentioned” and wouldn’t “comment on the specifics” of it.
“But I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I’m just, I’m so over it,” he said, according to a video posted online by C-Span.
On Sunday, Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
Vance also said he’d heard from someone who was “kind of pissed off” about a joke that comedian George Lopez told at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, which “if you wanted to look at it a particular way, you could say that was a racist joke.”
“And my response was, ‘Can we all just take a chill pill and take a joke from time to time?’ This is ridiculous,” he said. ” Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”
On Saturday, Lopez appeared at campaign rally featuring Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz in Phoenix, Arizona, joking, “Donald Trump said he was going to build a wall and George Lopez said, ‘You better build it in one day, because if you leave that material out there overnight –‘” before looking around as if the stuff was missing.
Lopez, a Mexican American, followed up by saying, “He also said he was going to get Mexico to pay for the wall. I wish you would’ve asked me. We can’t even split a check at a restaurant,” according to a video posted online by Live Now from Fox.
In addition to the “island of garbage” remark, Hinchcliffe’s racist jokes included saying that he’d “carved watermelons” instead of pumpkins at a Halloween party hosted by a “black guy” in the audience.
He also said that “Latinos love making babies” during a crude bit that ended with a complaint about immigration and that Jews “have a hard time” parting with their money.
