Andrew Yang would be “happy to sit down and talk” with Shane Gillis, a comedian who called the Democratic presidential contender “a Jew chink” in one of a number of offensive remarks unearthed after he was named as a new cast member on Saturday Night Live.

“Shane,” Yang tweeted on Saturday, “I prefer comedy that makes people think and doesn’t take cheap shots. But I’m happy to sit down and talk with you if you’d like.”

Yang added that he does not think Gillis should lose his SNL role.

The new season of the flagship NBC show begins in two weeks’ time. Gillis was named to the cast on Thursday, alongside Bowen Yang – a Chinese American writer for the show and now its first Asian cast member – and Chloe Fineman.

A freelance journalist soon unearthed and tweeted footage of Gillis, 31, making racist, bigoted and homophobic remarks, among them offensive comments about Asian people, food and culture, on Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast. A flood of similar footage followed.

Gillis’s remarks about Andrew Yang were first reported by Vice. In a discussion of the Democratic presidential race on Luis J Gomez’s Real Ass Podcast, the comedian is heard first referring to the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.

I do not think he should lose his job. We would benefit from being more forgiving … We are all human Andrew Yang

“That Jew chink?” he says. “Commie Jew chink? Next, please, next. Gimme your next candidate, Dems. Jew chink, next. Actually, they are running a Jew chink: Chang, dude.

“Yang, or Chang?”

Yang, a tech entrepreneur, would be the first Asian American president. He is currently sixth in the Democratic race, according to the realclearpolitics.com polling average. Qualifying ahead of a number of national political figures, he appeared onstage in Houston on Thursday in the third Democratic debate.

By Saturday morning he had offered comment on Gillis’s remarks. NBC and SNL had not.

Gillis released a statement on Thursday, saying he was “a comedian who pushes boundaries”.

“I sometimes miss,” he added. “If you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses. I’m happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said. My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks.”

The New York Times reported that Gillis was invited onstage at The Stand, a comedy club in the city, on Thursday night.

“Gillis told the crowd he had been playing a character during the podcast,” the paper said, “and that he did not himself think of Chinese people that way.”

The owner of The Stand, Cris Italia, told the Times Gillis had “been nothing but a model citizen here” and added: “It’s ridiculous to take one quote out of context from a podcast he did over a year ago and ruin his opportunity to be a cast member.”

But Greg Maughan, founder and executive director of the Philly Improv Theater in Philadelphia, told the Times he had stopped working with Gillis in 2017 because of his insistence on using “racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and homophobic” material.

Another Philadelphia venue, the Good Good Comedy Theatre, said on Twitter: “We, like many, were very quickly disgusted by Shane Gillis’ overt racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia – expressed both on and off stage – upon working with him years ago. We’ve deliberately chosen not to work with him in the years since.”

On Saturday afternoon, on Twitter, Yang added a second thought on the matter.

“For the record,” he said, “I do not think [Gillis] should lose his job. We would benefit from being more forgiving rather than punitive. We are all human.”