A Republican strategist's effort to pass off as comedy a crude and racist joke delivered at former President Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally Sunday got a sarcastic putdown on CNN Monday.
The network's panel was unpacking the implications behind comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's on-stage jokes about Latinos and Puerto Ricans, whom he said "love making babies" and live on a "floating island of garbage."
Republican strategist Matt Gorman argued Hinchcliffe's commentary proved "why comedy and politics do not mix" since "comedians want laughs, politicians want votes" — a conflict that could overshadow Trump's final message to voters.
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But The Atlantic's David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, hit back that the comments were "moronic and anti-social" — and completely in line with Trump's campaign.
"Yeah it's a problem for the campaign," he cut in, "because this joke of rage, contempt, and hate, terribly distracted from the campaign's message of rage, contempt, and hate."
Uncomfortable chuckles broke out among the panel.
Frum then delivered a brutal takedown of the Trump campaign's rhetoric and policy platform that he argued were on precisely the same level as the joke targeting an entire race of people.
"This has always been the message," Frum said. "Police women, expel people who are different from you, be angry at the world, denounce criminals from the mouth of a convicted criminal himself. That's the message."
Frum dismissed any notion that Trump has been mounting a Machiavellian campaign where dark rhetorical means will justify ends of subtle fiscal White House policy.
Instead, he argued Trump means what he says — and what comedians say on his behalf.
"There's not some other Trump campaign that is about accelerated depreciation rates are about accelerating an economic growth — their economic ideas are more moronic and antisocial," Frum said.
"This is what they are, and so I think this rally was a true public service."
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