Biden tries to end furore after calling Trump supporters ‘garbage’ | Joe Biden news

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US President Joe Biden has been forced to issue a clarification after he appeared to refer to supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as “garbage”.

In a live stream Tuesday with the advocacy group Voto Latino, Biden sought to condemn the rhetoric at a recent Trump rally in Madison Square Garden that was criticized as racist and misogynistic.

“Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage,” Biden said on the live stream, before going on to call Puerto Ricans “good, decent, honorable people.”

Then he added: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters’ — his hatred — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American.”

The episode was immediately seized upon by leading Republicans, including Trump, who interpreted the statement as an insult to the average conservative voter.

Some drew parallels to Democrat Hillary Clinton, who called Trump’s supporters “deplorable” during her 2016 presidential bid.

But Biden and his team have since issued statements trying to clarify that his remarks were only about Madison Square Garden speaker, Trump supporter and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe.

The White House responds

White House spokesman Andrew Bates quickly dismissed the idea that Biden was referring to Trump supporters.

The Democratic president, Bates said, “referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as trash” — not the voters.

In a transcript released by the White House, the word “supporters” was a singular possessive, in an apparent reference to Hinchcliffe, as opposed to the plural noun “supporters”.

Soon after, Biden also posted on social media platform X to address the issue.

“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 it,” he wrote.

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

For many Democrats, the scrutiny of Biden’s remarks was yet another reflection of his tendency to slur his words or mix up information.

The 81-year-old’s apparent frailty, on display during his June debate with Trump, was the driving factor behind him eventually dropping his re-election bid. Even within his own party, critics questioned his continued ability to lead.

After Biden left the race in July, Vice President Kamala Harris immediately emerged as his replacement, sparking a wave of enthusiasm.

She has continued to defend Biden during his campaign, even telling the talk show The View “there’s not one thing that comes to mind” that she would do differently than him.

Nevertheless, political observers have noted that Biden has only been involved in a handful of events organized by the Harris campaign. And Harris himself has often described himself as a “new generation of leadership”.

Biden’s remarks came on the same night that Harris gave a keynote address in Washington, DC, where she sought to distinguish between her campaign and Trump’s divisiveness.

‘This is disgusting’

Republicans, meanwhile, have used Biden’s comments as a line of attack against Democrats in the crucial final week of the campaign.

With the election just seven days away, Republicans have tried to distance Trump from Hinchcliffe’s remarks. Trump himself defended the demonstration as a “love fest”.

“President Trump is backed by Latinos, black voters, union workers, angel mothers, law enforcement, border patrol agents, and Americans of all faiths — and Harris, Walz, and Biden have labeled these great Americans fascists, Nazis, and now, trash,” the Trump campaign said in a statement,

“There’s no way to spin it: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don’t just hate President Trump, they despise the tens of millions of Americans who support him.”

Trump’s running mate JD Vance also blasted Biden’s comments. “This is disgusting,” he said. “Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half the country. There is no excuse for this. I hope the Americans reject it.”

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a Trump surrogate on the campaign trail, drew on his heritage as a Cuban American in his response.

“I hope their campaign is about to apologize for what Joe Biden just said. We’re not trash. We’re patriots who love America,” he told a rally in the Latino stronghold of Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Some Democrats also distanced themselves from Biden’s words.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro told CNN that he “would never offend the good people of Pennsylvania or any American, even if they chose to support a candidate that I did not support”.

In 2016, Clinton had referred to Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables”.

She later claimed that she had generalized, but among Trump supporters her words were taken as an attack on working class people.