Well, Rob Schneider claims he did actually finish his comedy set at the Republican event, so there

What could be less surprising than Rob Schneider turning to TMZ to set the record straight about his doomed stand-up set at the Republican leadership holiday party? (Besides every other unsurprising detail about this story, of course.) Schneider says that he wasn’t removed from the stage after just ten minutes of performing, and that he “did 50 minutes because that’s what I was paid to do. Nobody removed me from stage. Somebody waved to me at the 50 minute mark.”

If you’re wondering how much he was paid to do the 50 minutes (which he may or may not have performed in totality, depending on whether you believe Politico’s reporting or Schneider himself), that would be a neat $50,000. Yes, every minute of jokes so offensive even a bunch of Republicans couldn’t sit through them is worth one thousand American dollars. And that figure has actually “devaluated by 26% over the last three years,” Schneider told TMZ, something he apparently blames on Joe Biden.

It’s unclear whether Schneider mentioned his paycheck to communicate that he’ll work for anybody who gives him money, even Republicans, or if he was highlighting his own consummate professionalism of doing the job he was paid for, or if he just wanted a chance to complain about Joe Biden blocking his cash flow. He did preface his statement by declaring, “I’m not changing my material or apologizing for my jokes to anybody. Enough with this woke bullshit. America’s sick of it.” It’s also unclear where the “woke bullshit” comes in with this story. Is Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, who walked out of the “gross and vulgar” set, the one perpetuating the woke bullshit? Is it the Senate Working Group, which was forced to issue an apology for Schneider’s inappropriate comedy? Or is it just that darned liberal media for turning this into a story in the first place?

For the record, Schneider pointed out to TMZ that many of the jokes he told, including the one about “Korean whore-houses,” were in his latest special Rob Schneider: Woke Up In America. SWG claimed that Schneider broke a verbal agreement “to keep his set relatively clean,” but it sure sounds like this could’ve been avoided if any of those Republicans actually watched the Fox Nation streaming service before hiring him. Anyway, Senate Working Group has not responded to The A.V. Club’s inquiry as to when, exactly, Schneider left the stage, so you can decide whose version of the story is more believable.