The Comedy World Has Been Waiting to Talk About How Much Tony Hinchcliffe Sucks

Right now, open mic host Tony Hinchcliffe is the most famous comedian in America despite never once being the funniest comic on his own show.

Last night, the 40-year-old standup and podcaster from Youngstown, Ohio took the stage at a rally for Donald Trump in Madison Square Garden, an historic venue where he hosted a special live episode of his podcast and comedy show Kill Tony back in August. On Kill Tony, which Hinchcliffe typically hosts in Austin, Texas, Hinchcliffe and a panel of manosphere stand-up comics such as Shane Gillis and Joe Rogan invite amateur comedians to perform one minute of standup comedy while Hinchcliffe and his friends roast them and riff amongst themselves. But while Hinchcliffe played his previous MSG performances in front of a crowd that came to see his mean-spirited, anti-woke and anti-originality style of comedy, the Austin comedy scene’s most powerful gate-keeper was surprised to find that his “edgy” humor was too far-right for even the Trump crowd to stomach.

A veteran of the Comedy Central Roast circuit, Hinchcliffe performed a discount Don Rickles set that heavily featured his 2007-4chan-level racial humor in front of a packed and confused crowd of Trump supporters. His predictable punchlines and abuse of overused stereotypes barely elicited so much as a smile from the stadium crowd. At one point, Hinchcliffe “joked” to a chorus of crickets, “These Latinos, they love making babies, too, just know that. There’s no pulling out, they come inside, just like they did to our country.” At another point, Hinchcliffe riffed to the groaning crowd, “There’s a lot going on. I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

Although Hinchcliffe’s 12-minute set landed spectacularly flat in front of the tens of thousands of Trump fans last night, the online reaction in the hours that followed has been even more harsh. Even the Trump campaign distanced itself from Hinchcliffe’s set, as Trump senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”