Former “SNL” cast member Rob Schneider is once again setting himself up as an arbiter of comedy, and this time, he’s targeting Dave Chappelle.
During a sold-out show at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Chappelle darkly joked that the death of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk put him in a “good mood.”
The audience responded to Chappelle’s joke with a mix of shock and laughter, and he doubled down.
“I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s just a feeling. I didn’t ask to feel this way,” before quipping, “I just be driving around like, ‘Why am I in such a good mood? Oh!’”
Kirk’s widow, Erica Kirk, was understandably unhappy.
“To see leftist podcasters, comedians, and commentators laugh about political assassination as though it’s entertainment and the destruction of a human life is a punchline, is beyond disgusting,” she wrote on social media. “A culture that laughs at assassination is one of profound moral decay.”
On Sunday night, Schneider, who has become a bit of a MAGA stooge during the Trump era, felt obliged to address Chappelle’s joke ― and the man himself ― in an X post in the form of a letter:
Elon Musk also wrote a post about Chappelle noting he “is just not funny anymore,” and Schneider responded as well.
Schneider’s protest against Chappelle’s dark and, yeah, tasteless joke is ironic, considering his own history of making tasteless jokes against marginalized people.
In 2024, the organizers of a charity event in Saskatchewan, Canada, had to apologize for Schneider after attendees objected to his set, which eyewitnesses said focused on “transphobic, misogynistic, and anti-vaccination jokes.”
This also isn’t the first time Schneider has chosen to define “comedy.”
In April, Schneider went after Jimmy Kimmel for joking that Melania Trump has “a glow like an expectant widow.”
He demanded that ABC cancel the talk show for “a pattern of reckless, dehumanizing rhetoric that disrespects human life and contributes to the toxic climate of hatred and violence threatening our nation.”