Biden clarifies the “rubbish” comment after new US election campaign

President Joe Biden has sought to clarify comments that sparked a new row when he condemned a joke made by a Donald Trump-supporting comedian.

On Sunday, comic Tony Hinchcliffe sparked controversy by calling Puerto Rico, a US territory, a “lake of garbage” during a Trump rally. Trump has distanced himself from the remark.

Biden appeared to turn Hinchcliffe’s words on its head during a Zoom interview on Tuesday as the 2024 US election campaign entered its final week.

Some who listened to his comments believed he was attacking Trump “supporters” in general, but he later insisted he was attacking Hinchcliffe’s words exclusively.

The White House released a transcript that attempted to show that the placement of an apostrophe made all the difference in what the president meant during a video call with the non-profit organization Voto Latino.

“The only garbage I see floating out there is (Trump’s) supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American,” Biden was quoted as saying in the transcript.

Biden himself later wrote on X: “Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump supporters at his rally in Madison Square Garden as trash — which is the only word I can think of to describe the.

“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that meeting do not reflect who we are as a nation.”

But Trump’s backers have seized on the comments, comparing them to a controversial remark by Hillary Clinton in 2016 during Trump’s first election campaign, when she said half of Trump’s supporters were from a “basket of deplorables”.

As the war of words escalated, Trump himself suggested that Kamala Harris – his rival for the White House – was running a “hate campaign”.

Referring to the Biden comments, he said, “You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American people.”

The Madison Square Garden rally referenced by Biden – where Hinchcliffe and others sparked offense with a series of comments – has now been defended by Trump as a “love fest”.

He acknowledged that “someone said some bad things” but said he didn’t think it was “a big deal”.

He stopped short of issuing an apology demanded by prominent figures from the island itself, which is a US territory. A number of Republicans — including from neighborhoods with strong Latino populations — were outraged.

In Philadelphia, in the swing state of Pennsylvania, members of the 90,000-strong Puerto Rican population told the BBC they would not forget the joke.

Residents of Puerto Rico – an American island territory in the Caribbean – cannot vote in the presidential election, but the large diaspora in the United States can.

Hinchcliffe himself has defended his material, saying that his critics “have no sense of humour”.

Biden’s comments about the furore threatened to overshadow a meeting Tuesday night by Kamala Harris, who is running for the White House as the Democratic nominee after Biden withdrew earlier in the race.

Harris delivered what her campaign has called her “closing argument” in Washington DC – at the site from which Trump spoke shortly before a riot by his supporters at the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021.

She urged voters to “turn the page on the drama and conflict” in American politics.

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher opines on the race for the White House in his twice-weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can register here. Those outside the UK can register here.