SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — President Joe Biden returned to his hometown in Pennsylvania, made a final campaign stop for Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday and let loose again — with the kind of unfiltered political sentiments that have become quite common in recent weeks.
Biden lambasted Harris’ rival, former Republican President Donald Trump, and his supporters on policy issues during a speech in Scranton, but then suggested he would hit back — literally — at faux “macho guys.”
“There’s one more thing Trump and his Republican friends want to do. They want a huge tax cut for the rich,” Biden told the local chapter of the carpenters union. Then, apparently referring to people who support Trump, he added: “I know some of you are tempted to think they’re macho guys.”
“I’ll tell you what, man, when I was in Scranton, we had a little trouble at times trying to figure out the plot,” Biden continued. “These are the kind of guys you’d like to kick in the ass. .”
At a rally later Saturday evening in North Carolina, Trump poked fun at Biden, asking the crowd, “I don’t even know, is he still there?”
Biden’s comments in Scranton drew laughter from the audience. But it was another moment where he deviated from the political script, something that is now often happening with the president — even though he has played a decidedly limited role in promoting Harris and made few campaign stops for his former running mate .
Earlier this week, Biden caused a stir by responding to racist comments at a recent Trump rally from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash.”
“The only trash I see floating out there are his supporters,” Biden said in response.
White House press officials changed the official transcript of Biden’s remarks, drawing objections from federal employees who transcribe what the president says for posterity, according to two U.S. government officials and an internal email obtained by The Associated Press.
And the reference to “garbage” followed Biden — during a recent stop at a campaign office in New Hampshire — saying of Trump, “We have to lock him up” before quickly amending his comments to note that he meant that Democrats’ should’ lock him up politically.”
During Saturday’s remarks in Scranton, Biden also offered traditional exhortations that attendees vote, saying they should do it “for yourself and your families, the people you grew up with, the people you come from.”
“Don’t forget where you came from,” Biden thundered at one point to shouts and applause. “Don’t leave behind the people you grew up with.”
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Weissert reported from Washington.
