President Biden once again intervened in the controversial debate campaign to succeed him, and appeared to call former President Donald Trump’s supporters “trash” during a video call with Latino activists Tuesday night. Republicans seized on the comments, while the White House offered another explanation for what Mr. Biden said.
The president was responding to a joke the comedian made during a Trump rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden Tony Hinchcliffein which Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of waste’.
In the video clip obtained by CBS News, it sounded as if Mr. Biden, who spoke via video to the left-wing group Voto Latino, might label Trump supporters as “trash.”
“The only trash I see floating around there are his supporters,” he seemed to say. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable.”
But the White House denied that the president said this about Trump supporters, releasing a transcript with a statement noting that “supporters” were in fact “supporters,” and Mr. Biden referring to Hinchcliffe and his joke.
A White House transcript says this is what Mr. Biden said: “And recently, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash.” Well, let me tell you something. I don’t – I – I don’t know Puerto Ricans – I do – or any Puerto Rico, where I’m from – in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people. The only trash I see floating out there is that of his supporters – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s completely at odds with everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.
“The president called the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally ‘trash,’” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.
Republicans seized the video – Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio, who appeared with Trump at his rally in Allentown, Pennsylvaniatold the crowd Tuesday night about Mr. Biden’s comments and demanded the president apologize.
Trump responded by saying, “Trash, I think, is worse,” and compared the comment to an earlier statement by Hillary Clinton in 2016, when she called half of Trump supporters a “basket full of money.” deplorableTrump added that it was “horrible to say something like that.”
“Please forgive him because he doesn’t know what he said,” Mr. Trump jokingly said of Mr. Biden, as his supporters shouted “No!” shouted.
The comments — and the president’s aides’ hasty attempts to clarify his words — suggest that a partisan argument over syntax could dominate the final days of a campaign with less than 200 hours to go.
And they could serve as a late-stage gift to Trump, who spent more than a year attacking the president’s mental and physical fitness, only to see his strategy upended by Harris’ sudden rise in the race. In recent weeks, Trump has used Harris’ difficulty to answer questions about how she would be different from Mr. Biden. She has since said in interviews that her presidency would “of course” be different from her boss’s.
Trump also sent a fundraising appeal to his supporters: “KAMALA’S BOSS JOE BIDEN CALLED ALL MY SUPPORTERS DIRTY!…YOU ARE AWESOME!”
President Biden clarified his comment later Tuesday evening in a post on X.
“Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by the Trump supporter at his rally at Madison Square Garden as nonsense – and that’s the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable,” Mr. Biden wrote. . ‘That’s all I wanted to say. The comments at that meeting do not reflect who we are as a nation.”
The commotion occurred the same evening that Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her campaign closing arguments. She called Trump a figure who would only deepen divisions in America if elected and vowed to work with everyone — Democrats, Republicans and independents — to improve the lives of Americans.
Several Harris campaign aides did not respond to requests for comment late Tuesday.
Pennsylvania Governor and Harris surrogate Josh Shapiro told CNN, “I would never insult the good people of Pennsylvania or any American, even if they chose to support a candidate I do not support.”
Hinchcliffe’s comments at the Trump rally, which also included offensive jokes about black people and Latinos, were met with swift backlash, with several celebrities defending Puerto Rico and Latinos in the US and expressing support for Harris’ plan for the island. . Jennifer Lopez, Ariana DeBose and Ricky Martin were among those who participated. Martin, who has more than 18 million followers, took to Instagram and posted: “Puerto Rico, this is what they think of us, vote for Kamala Harris.”
Trump, for his part, also said Tuesday that he did not know who Hinchcliffe was and was not aware of the joke he had made. “It’s no one’s fault, but someone said bad things,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I don’t know if it’s bad or not, but I don’t want anyone to make nasty jokes or stupid jokes. He probably shouldn’t have been there,” Trump added. His campaign said the jokes were not reviewed or pre-approved by the campaign.
Ed O’Keefe
