Sen. JD Vance said Monday that while he hadn't heard the racist jokes made by a comedian at his running mate's New York City rally the previous night, he thinks Americans need to "stop getting so offended."
"I’m just — I’m so over it," Vance said after an NBC News reporter asked about the inflammatory remarks about Latinos and others by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, the first speaker at former President Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
"I’ve heard about the joke, I haven’t actually seen the joke that you mentioned, but I think that it’s telling that Kamala Harris’ closing message is essentially that all of Donald Trump’s voters are Nazis, and you should get really pissed off about a comedian telling a joke," Vance said.
Harris said Monday that Trump’s rally was “focused and fixated on the grievances on himself and on dividing the country.” She has not said that Trump voters are Nazis.
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Among the jokes by Hinchcliffe that sparked bipartisan outrage was his remark that "there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
There's a large Puerto Rican presence in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, and Trump's campaign tried to distance itself from the comedian's remarks.
“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said.
Vance, however, suggested it was just a distraction.
"My own view on this is, look, again, I haven’t seen the joke. You know, maybe, maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke as you said, maybe it’s not. I haven’t seen it. I’m not going to comment on the specifics of the joke," he said.
"I think that a lot of Americans are sick of the distractions and sick of the BS. They want our candidates to talk about how they’re going to solve the peoples’ problems, and that’s what we ought to do," he said.
Vance added that he'd recently heard from someone who'd been offended by a joke that comedian George Lopez told at a Harris rally, and that he told him, “Can we all just take a chill pill and take a joke from time to time? This is ridiculous.”
“We are not going to — we’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun and let’s go win in eight days,” Vance said.
Top Trump ally Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., took a different tack Monday, tweeting that "Puerto Rico isn’t garbage, it’s home to fellow American citizens who have made tremendous contributions to our country."
"I understand why some people were offended by a comedian's jokes last night. But those weren’t Trump’s words," Rubio added.
Hinchcliffe's routine, which included other racist jokes about Latinos and Black Americans, came just days after Trump said the U.S. is “like a garbage can” during remarks about immigration.
Marc Anthony, a Grammy-winning singer of Puerto Rican descent who's backing Harris, took to social media Monday to criticize Trump's treatment of the island when he was president.
"I remember what he did and said, about Puerto Rico, about our people. I remember after Hurricane Maria devastated our island, Trump blocked billions in relief while thousands died. I remember that when our families lacked clean water and electricity, Trump threw paper towels and called Puerto Rico 'dirty' and 'poor,'" Anthony said, adding that's why he's supporting Harris.
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