President Biden sparked backlash on Tuesday when he appeared to compare supporters of former President Trump to garbage after commenting on a racist joke a comedian made at a Trump rally days earlier likening Puerto Rico to an “island of garbage.”
The White House in a statement argued that the president was referring to the rhetoric at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday as “garbage.”
“The President referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage,’” deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.
It also provided a fuller transcript of the comment, which included an apostrophe with “supporter’s,” to indicate Biden was referring to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s “demonization of Latinos” as “garbage.”
Hinchcliffe delivered a comedic set at a Madison Square Garden rally for Trump on Sunday in New York City that mocked Latinos, Jews and Black men and included a joke comparing Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage.”
“And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage.’ Well, let me tell you something. I don’t — I — I don’t know the Puerto Rican that — that I know — or a Puerto Rico, where I’m from, in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been,” Biden said, according to the transcript provided by the White House.
In a post on X, Biden himself asserted he was referring to the rhetoric from Hinchcliffe.
“Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable,” Biden posted. “That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.”
A video clip of Biden’s remarks also circulated. In that clip, it sounds as if the president ends one thought with the word “supporters,” and then begins a new sentence referring to the “demonization of Latinos.”
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden appears to say in the clip. “His, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”
Biden often misspeaks, sometimes making it difficult to figure out what he is saying or meaning. It’s also true that different people could hear different things from his comments.
Either way, the remarks and the clean-up effort struck a discordant note for Democrats, as they circulated widely just as Vice President Harris completed a speech at the Ellipse behind the White House where she made her closing campaign argument against former President Donald Trump.
Biden’s comments on the call with Voto Latino, a major advocacy group for organizing Latino voters, quickly went viral, with Trump allies comparing them to then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s 2016 remarks when she said some of the former president’s supporters were “deplorables.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) brought up the remark while on stage at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania.
“That’s terrible,” Trump said, suggesting Biden’s remark was worse than Clinton’s 2016 comments.
“This is disgusting. Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country,” Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the GOP nominee for vice president, posted on X. “There’s no excuse for this. I hope Americans reject it.”
“Harris and Biden falsely claim they want to unify the nation while calling tens of millions of Americans TRASH,” senior Trump campaign adviser Brian Hughes posted on X. “This is the quiet part out loud about those of us who simply want life to be affordable again and a secure border to keep our families safe.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) was asked about the comments on CNN. He said he had not heard the remarks prior to coming on air, but added that he would “never insult the good people of Pennsylvania or any Americans, even if they chose to support a candidate that I didn’t support.”
Others questioned the White House’s explanation for Biden’s remarks.
“The problem with the transcript bit beyond people having ears is that the unintelligible interpolation of multiple distinct thoughts isn’t a very good defense,” Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist, posted on X.
Biden’s comments handed the Trump campaign a lifeline at a time when the former president and his allies were under intense scrutiny for the rhetoric at his Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden, where speakers made numerous racist and sexist comments about Democrats.
In addition to Hinchcliffe, Sid Rosenberg, a New York City radio host whose show Trump periodically calls in to, said the Democratic Party was a “bunch of degenerates.”
One speaker described Harris as “the devil” and “the antichrist,” and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked Harris’s biracial heritage.
Biden has appeared sparingly alongside Vice President Harris since she replaced him as the Democratic nominee in late July. Axios reported earlier this week that the Harris campaign believes Biden is a political liability.
Harris delivered her closing argument speech to more than 75,000 supporters on the National Mall on Tuesday night, where she urged Americans to turn the page on the divisiveness of the Trump years. Biden did not attend.
