Late Night Weighs In On Controversial Trump Rally — Who Defended Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe? [Video]

While there were a lot of moments late-night poked fun at, like Melania Trump’s awkward hug and kiss with her husband after introducing him and Hulk Hogan’s struggle to rip his shirt off, the overwhelming consensus was that the content and messaging of the rally was deeply concerning.

“This was supposed to be Trump’s closing argument to voters. It felt more like Kamala Harris’ closing argument to voters,” Jimmy Kimmel argued. “It was ugly, it was mean, it was hateful, it was racist, anti-Semitic, it was stupid.”

After cracking jokes about the rally, Stephen Colbert appeared to have a very raw and real moment, with the whole timbre of his voice and demeanor softening when he said, “Trump was exhausted, repetitious and just awful. I am so sick of that guy.”

He went on to add, “And we still have a week left until the election. You know? Nine years? Enough.”

Read on to find out what Kimmel, Colbert, Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, and Seth Meyers had to say about Trump’s wild weekend in New York.

Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert did not hold back his thoughts about Trump’s wild weekend at Madison Square Garden, opening his monologue by saying, “The rally was just a stomach-churning six hours of hatred, racism, and threats of totalitarian revenge.”

He then pivoted to the most talked about act of the night, roast comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, saying that he “made a bunch of jokes that are so appallingly racist, none of the cable news channels would even run ’em.”

Those jokes included referencing watermelons while singling out a Black rally attendee, asking him what that is on his head, an extremely vulgar joke about Latinos having a lot of kids, and his most viral — for the wrong reasons — comment about Puerto Rico.

“I don’t know if you guys know this but there is literally a floating pile of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now,” Hinchcliffe said at the rally in a clip that’s been seen and shared by just about everyone by now. “Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

“You don’t get to call something else a floating pile of garbage when you are standing on top of Penn Station,” Colbert shot back. “They clean off the pee with fresher pee!”

He then went on to note that “more than 470,000 people of Puerto Rican descent live in Pennsylvania alone,” making it a joke that could potentially be costly for Trump in the battleground state.

He also noted the response from major Puerto Rican stars like Bad Bunny, Luis Fonsi, Ricky Martin, and Jennifer Lopez, quipping that her next single will be “Love Don’t Cost a Thing … But That Joke Might Cost You Bucks County.'”

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

“They really pissed of Puerto Ricans to the point where Bad Bunny had to get involved, and that’s when you know you’ve got a problem,” Jimmy Kimmel said during his monologue of the viral moment.

“Trump made such a mess with Puerto Ricans, they’re now throwing paper towels at him,” he added, referencing Trump’s own viral Hurricane Maria response video that was almost as poorly received.

Kimmel also called out what he saw as a dramatic about-face from Dr. Phil McGraw after the daytime host appeared on his show nine years ago and spoke out strongly against Trump, seemingly agreeing that he’s nacrissistic.

He then played a clip of Dr. Phil at the Trump rally talking about how celebrity endorsements shouldn’t matter and they should stay out of politics altogether.

“Agreed, so then let’s not elect one for president, okay?” Kimmel said after showing the clip, adding, “He does realize he’s endorsing Donald Trump, right, from The Celebrity — The CELEBRITY Apprentice?”

He then pivoted to talk about the surprise appearance of Melania Trump, who awkwardly introduced her husband before an even more awkward embrace and cheek (hair?) kiss exchange.

“His whole platform is immigrants are dangerous, immigrants are killing our country, we have to stop the immigrants,” Kimmel said. “And now, from Slovenia, please say hello to our former first lady, Melania Trump.”

Late Night with Seth Meyers

Seth Meyers quipped that the former First Lady was “clearly in hell, what with all the terrible things they were saying about immigrants.”

He contrasted that rhetoric with Trump and his cohorts talking about his campaign as “a movement of love.” In particularly, he showed clip after clip of Eric Trump talking about people coming up to him and hugging him, feeling all that love.

“I wanna give Eric a little wiggle room here because I’ve got to imagine when Donald Trump is your dad, your early years are a real Sahara desert in the hugs department.”

He spared a few jokes about Hulk Hogan’s struggles to rip his short off — “That was like watching my kids take off a sweater” — and Elon Musk’s triumphant roar — “Sounds like a sick Wookiee” — and even weighed in on the campaign later trying to distance itself from Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico joke.

“You know how bad something has to be for the Trump campaign to distance itself from it?” he asked. “Trump won’t even distance himself from Hannibal Lecter. He’s bragging about how similar he is to Scarface.”

The Daily Show

While everyone in late-night seemed to be agreeing that Hinchcliffe’s jokes, and the tone of the whole rally were hugely concerning, there was one host who wasn’t quite ready to bash the rally’s opening comedian.

“Obviously, in retrospect, having a roast comedian come to a political rally a week before election day and roasting a key voting demographic, probably not the best decision by the campaign politically,” said Jon Stewart, “but to be fair, the guy’s just really doing what he does.”

Stewart then pulled several clips from Netflix’s recent roast of Tom Brady, which also included Hinchcliffe “doing what he does.” That included a joke about Jewish comic Jeff Ross only watching football for the coin toss, Rob Gronkowski looking “like the Nazi who kept burning himself on the ovens,” and Kevin Hart’s slave ancestors calling cotton picking deadlifting (a dig at his size).

After playing the clip, Stewart jumped back with, “Yes, yes, of course, terrible, boo. Yes.” But there was no enthusiasm behind any of these words.

Then, after a brief pause, he laughed and said, “Yes. There’s something wrong with me. I find that guy very funny. So, I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I mean, bringing him to a rally and having him not do roast jokes?” he continued. “That’d be like bringing Beyonce to a rally and not hav– Oh.” That being a reference to Kamala Harris having the R&B icon at her Texas rally and Bey just talking.

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

True to form, Jimmy Fallon didn’t delve too deeply into the political morass in his monologue, but he did touch on Trump’s rally, joking that it “was described as ‘unhinged, crude, and racist,’ as opposed to the stable, polite and tolerant Trump rallies we’re accustomed to.”

Later, Meyers called the rally “grotesque and ominous,” joking that “it was the most vitriolic rage-filled group of white people in that building since the last Rangers game.”

But perhaps it was Colbert who had the best response to Trump’s rally — and in particular, Trump’s own speech, which came four-and-a-half hours into the event. He was so tired of it all, he opted not to show any of it, instead sharing a strange video of a Russian tongue choir.

Yes, it is exactly what you envisioned when you read that. It was glorious, a little unsettling, and a lot amusing. Colbert was all smiles again after sharing the clip.