On Sunday afternoon, when Donald Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, comedian and podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe opened the big show with a string of racist jokes. He referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean,” made a crude remark about Latinos and sex, and joked about carving watermelons with a Black person for Halloween. Some in the packed arena laughed. It was the start of hours of MAGA extremism that included a speaker who called Vice President Kamala Harris “the Antichrist” and one who described Harris’ advisers as “pimp handlers.” The shindig culminated in one of Trump’s most inflammatory speeches.
Throughout the hours-long program, no one on the line-up—including Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, JD Vance, Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Melania Trump, Dr. Phil, and Tucker Carlson—called out Hinchcliffe.
Nor did Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
When it was his turn on the stage, the former Democrat, who this year ran an unsuccessful independent campaign for president, praised Trump to the hilt, claiming that Trump, if elected, would “restore the moral authority” of the United States, “protect” the Constitution and free speech, and “rebuild the middle class.” He also proclaimed that Trump would “stop dividing this country along racial lines.”
Kennedy’s silence about Hinchcliffe’s foul racism was more significant than that of his fellow Trumpers, for he once had a strong bond with Puerto Rico.
In 2001, he was arrested and sentenced to 30 days in prison for trespassing as a participant in a series of protests that aimed to stop the US Navy bombing exercises on Vieques island. The protesters contended the bombing was damaging the island’s environment and harming its 9,100 residents. The arrested demonstrators included actor Edward James Olmos, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, and the Rev. Al Sharpton. Kennedy ended up serving a short stint in prison. He was so emotionally invested in this protest that he gave the middle name Vieques to one of his children.
So what did he make of Hinchcliffe’s racist gags?
On Monday morning, I reached Kennedy on his cell phone and asked why he hadn’t said anything at the rally about those comments. Kennedy asked to answer me off the record. Really? He would have to go off the record to discuss this? I replied that I preferred for this conversation to be on the record. He assented and said, “I was unaware of Tony Hinchcliffe’s, uh, uh, statement when I spoke or I would have addressed it.” He stopped talking, as if that was enough of a response.
“Well, what do you think of it now?” I asked.
“I think it was unfortunate,” he said. He paused and then added, “And that’s all I’ve got to say.”
Merely unfortunate? Nothing stronger?
I tried to press Kennedy for more, but he hung up.
His response was far weaker than the statement the Trump campaign had issued when it realized Hinchcliffe’s disastrous performance had tainted Trump’s campaign finale: “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
Other Republicans were more outspoken. Florida Sen. Rick Scott tweeted, “This joke bombed for a reason. It’s not funny and it’s not true. Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans!” Recently imprisoned Trump adviser Peter Navarro called Hinchcliffe “the biggest, stupidest asshole that ever came down the comedy pike”
Hinchcliffe’s comments quickly drew harsh criticism from the Harris campaign, and, at the same time, prominent Puerto Ricans, including Bad Bunny Jennifer Lopez, and Ricky Martin expressed their support for Harris. Within hours of Hinchcliffe’s Madison Square Garden appearance, the campaign released a video and social media posts assailing his racist cracks and promoting Harris’ plans for Puerto Rico.
In a 1963 speech as attorney general, Robert Kennedy, declared that one of the “overriding moral drives” of the nation was to combat racism and “to do everything possible to eliminate racial discrimination.” And during his speech at the Trump event, RFK Jr. hailed his father and his uncle, President John Kennedy, for having once led a party committed to civil rights. Yet by hooking up with Trump, who has a long record of racism, Kennedy has not lived up to that standard his father called for. (He has also promoted racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories.) His unwillingness to sharply criticize the brazen racism present at the Trump rally where he was a headliner suggests Kennedy is a politician driven more by opportunism than his family’s legacy.
