Joe Rogan has rushed to Tony Hinchliffe’s defense, claiming the comedian’s racist Puerto Rico joke actually stemmed from him being “environmentally conscious.”

Hinchcliffe continues to face backlash following his appearance at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, where he referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

Following the comments, several high-profile Puerto Rican musicians, including Jennifer Lopez and Bad Bunny, have voiced their support for Vice President Kamala Harris, with the former set to join the Democratic candidate at a rally in Las Vegas on Thursday.

But, on Wednesday’s episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan sided with Hinchcliffe over the scandal.

“Here’s where the joke comes from. Tony is actually obsessed with the Pacific Garbage patch… So there’s this landfill in Puerto Rico that’s way overflowed. Puerto Rico has a legitimate trash problem because they’re on an island, where you gonna put it?” Rogan explained.

He continued: “So they have landfills and their landfills are way over capacity, so that’s where the joke came from. The joke came from Tony being environmentally conscious.”

Puerto Rico’s 3.2 million inhabitants produce almost a tonne of trash per year, according to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency. Limited recycling infrastructure means that less than 10 percent of solid waste is recycled on the island and almost all of its landfill sites are at – or near – capacity.

Despite defending him, Rogan also revealed he had previously warned Hinchcliffe about the offensive gag.

“I didn’t know what bits he was going to do, but then I heard he did that joke, and I was like, ‘Oh, Jesus, Tony. Here it comes,’” Rogan said.

The podcaster claimed that, if he got the opportunity, he would have given the comedian a stern piece of advice prior to taking the stage: “Don’t you f***ing dare do that joke.”

Rogan, however, said he has previously warned Hinchcliffe about potential fallout from cracking the offensive joke.

“I said to him, I go, ‘Dude, that’s the one that’s gonna get you stabbed,” he said.

Rogan, who welcomed Trump on his show on Friday and was interviewing his running mate JD Vance on Wednesday, said that the political stage was a bad environment for comedy.

That said, he insisted “it’s a funny joke.”

“I’ve gotta tell you, that joke kills at comedy clubs. I don’t like the joke, [but] it kills,” the podcaster said. “It’s just like, if you’re Puerto Rican and you hear that in the audience, you’re like [groans]. But it’s a funny joke. The joke does well.”

Democrats, Latino celebrities and the Puerto Rican community have condemned the joke as overtly racist – as well as condemning Trump for platforming it.

Trump has tried to distance himself from it, claiming not to know Hinchcliffe – and trying to shift attention onto President Joe Biden’s remarks where, while responding to the Hinchcliffe joke furore, he appeared to call the former president’s supporters “garbage.”

In an attempt to capitalize on Biden’s so-called gaffe, Trump dressed up in an orange high-visibility vest and clambered into a MAGA-branded garbage truck before his Wisconsin rally on Wednesday.

“How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump asked reporters. “This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”

The stunt comes despite Trump repeatedly calling the entire US a “garbage can” in several campaign rallies in recent days.