White House Transcribers Add Apostrophe to President’s Comment Calling Trump Supporters ‘Garbage’
© AP Photo / Susan Walsh
Subscribe
In a 2017 election postmortem of the 2016 race, Hillary Clinton cited her off the cuff comment about half of Donald Trump’s supporters consisting of a “basket of deplorables” as one of the reasons she lost, calling the remark a “political gift” to her opponent. Eight years later, President Biden may inadvertently have handed Trump the same “gift.”
White House staffers, Joe Biden’s allies, and the president himself have entered damage control mode over a remark about Trump supporters being “garbage” in a viral get-out-the-vote video targeting Latinos.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American,” the White House’s official transcript of the president’s remarks, inserting an apostrophe into the word “supporters”, read.
Screenshot of White House transcript of President Biden's 'garbage' comment.
© Photo : White House website
Biden or his handlers attempted to backpedal in a follow-up tweet from the president’s personal X account, which 'clarified' that he was referring to the “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally,” not the former president's followers.
Users didn’t buy the justification. “No, you called us garbage. It’s on tape,” one top comment suggested. “It sounded like you called half the country garbage imo,” another noted. “Joe said it and he meant it. Damage control from a staffer on an account he doesn’t have his own password to isn’t going to work,” another suggested.
BIDEN CALLED TRUMP SUPPORTERS 'GARBAGE'
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) October 30, 2024
In a virtual event in support of Kamala Harris, Joe Biden called over 74 million (that's how many Americans voted for Donald Trump in the last election) 'garbage'. pic.twitter.com/vz4P63D1Kk
Vice President Kamala Harris, running to replace Biden, addressed the comments Wednesday morning, apparently trying to distance herself from her boss.
“First of all, he clarified his comments, but let me be clear I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris said.
Harris’ running mate Tim Walz sought to downplay the significance of the remarks, echoing the Democratic candidate for president and attacking Trump.
“Let’s be very clear: The vice president and I have made it absolutely clear that we want everyone part of this. Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric is what needs to end. He called this a garbage country and continues on from 'the enemy within'. What you heard Vice President Harris say and what I say is there’s a place for all of us here,” Walz said in a TV interview Wednesday, adding that Harris, not Biden, is the one running for president and “delivering the message.”
Trump’s allies didn’t buy the justification, immediately seizing on the “garbage” comments and evoking Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 “basket of deplorables” remark.
Media coverage of Biden’s gaffe divided largely along party lines, although some Democratic-leaning CNN admitted that it didn't look good for the president and he “may have handed Trump a big assist with his ‘garbage’ gaffe.” The Associated Press didn’t play along with the White House’s apostrophe placement, running a headline on Wednesday reading “Biden suggests Trump supporters are ‘garbage’ after comic’s insult of Puerto Rico.”
It was Democrats who first sought to blow up the aforementioned 'garbage' comment at a pro-Trump rally in New York to try to take votes from their opponent, with Democratic Representative Delia Ramirez suggesting that comedian Tony Hinchliffe’s remarks characterizing Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” represented “exactly what Donald Trump and JDC Vance and every one of them believe.”
The “garbage” scandal comes less than a week before the November 5 election, with a RealClearPolitics Election 2024 poll average deeming Trump to be leading both nationally and in all important battleground states.
Last-minute pre-election comments disparaging the other side’s supporters have proven highly damaging in presidential campaigns. In 2012, leaked video of Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s remarks at a fundraising dinner suggesting that 47% of people “dependent upon government” and unwilling to “take personal responsibility and care for their own lives” would vote for President Obama no matter what were characterized as a "campaign killer" helping to mobilize voters against him.
