Analysis: Biden may have given Trump a big boost with his ‘garbage’ gaffe

CNN
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Joe Biden had largely been an afterthought a week before the election, where he had once hoped to win a second term.

Not anymore.

The president inadvertently injected himself into the domestic side of the campaign and may have given a big boost to his former rival, ex-President Donald Trump, who is struggling to quell fury over his bigotry-filled rally at Madison Square Garden earlier this week.

Biden mentioned Puerto Rico, vilified as a “floating island of garbage” by a comedian at Trump’s event Sunday night. But his clumsy defense of the self-governing U.S. territory — and the vital swing voters in its diaspora on the U.S. mainland — sparked a new political firestorm and distracted from Vice President Kamala Harris’ big closing argument speech against the backdrop of the White House on Tuesday night. .

“And the other day a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico ‘a floating island of garbage.’ Well, let me tell you something … I don’t know the Puerto Rico that I know … or the Puerto Rico where I am – in my home state of Delaware – they are good, decent, honorable people,” Biden said during virtual remarks in a Voto Latino get-out-the-vote calls to help Harris.

“The only trash I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden said, pausing before continuing. “His, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American.”

The White House quickly sought to clear up the president’s remarks, with spokesman Andrew Bates saying he had been referring to the “hateful rhetoric” at the New York rally, not the former president’s backers. He said Biden had actually said this: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters’ — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American.”

And in a further sign that the White House recognizes the episode’s potential political fallout, Biden himself took to social media to address it.

“Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporters at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage – which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I wanted to say. The comments on that rally do not reflect who we are as a nation,” Biden wrote on X.

But the damage may have already been done.

Biden’s comment drew immediate comparisons to then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s remark in 2016 that half of Trump’s supporters should be “put in the basket of deplorables” because of their “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic” views . Her remarks became a call-out to Trump and conservative media and remain a badge of honor for Trump fans who view East Coast Democratic elites as condescending and contemptuous of their way of life.

And Trump’s campaign seized on Biden’s remarks to try to create the same kind of dynamic, claiming the former president is supported by “Latinos, black voters, union workers, angel mothers, law enforcement, border patrol agents and Americans of all faiths,” while his opponents “have labeled these great Americans as fascists, Nazis, and now trash.” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt added: “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.”

No one can say how this latest twist in a turbulent campaign will affect the final outcome. But in the vicious heat of the final week of the deadlocked presidential campaign, where even a few imprecise words can create significant political consequences, it may not matter what Biden really meant. Perception is everything.

Just as Harris’ team wanted to keep attention on Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, which played into her contrasting message Tuesday night, the president gave Harris a political twist. She is now almost certain to be asked if she also considers Trump’s backers “garbage”. Her answer will only prolong the story. The former president is also likely to seize on the case to argue that Democrats look down on working Americans in the heartland.

A Trump fundraising email Tuesday night read: “FIRST Hillary called you a DEPLORABLE! THEN they called you a FASCIST! And a moment ago Kamala’s boss Biden called you GARBAGE!”

His campaign has already tried to twist the fallout from claims that Trump longed for the kind of generals who served Adolf Hitler to an argument that Harris thinks all his supporters are Nazis.

Biden’s “garbage” remark could also offer Trump an opening to finally spin out of the backlash over Puerto Rico caused by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at the New York rally. “He probably shouldn’t have been there,” Trump said of the comedian in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that aired Tuesday night. His earlier comments that the event was “an absolute love fest” had done nothing to defuse the controversy.

More broadly, a Biden comment that will be portrayed by pro-Trump media as disdain for the former president’s supporters came just as Harris is trying to present himself as a unifying figure to win over Republicans unhappy with Trump’s extremism, but is not yet ready to make the leap to vote for a Democrat.

“Here’s my promise to you,” Harris said Tuesday night at a rally on the Ellipse in Washington, the site where Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell” before the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “I promise to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your life better.”

The vice president continued: “To people who disagree with me, unlike Donald Trump, I don’t think people who disagree with me are the enemy. He’s going to put them in jail. I’m giving them a seat at the table.”

Clinton and Obama warned against disparaging Trump supporters

Whatever Biden meant, his remarks fly in the face of exhortations to Democrats from two other presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who implored activists at the Democratic National Convention to take the political battle to Trump but not to disrespect his constituents.

“Meet people where they are. I urge you not to belittle them … treat them with respect as you would have them treat you,” Clinton said, urging delegates to make the case for the vice president to their neighbors.

Obama addressed the risk that name-calling could lead accessible voters to conclude that all politicians are the same. “A sense of mutual respect must be part of our message. Our politics have become so polarized these days that we all, across the political spectrum, seem so quick to assume the worst in others unless they are agree with us on every single issue,” he said. “We’re starting to think the only way to win is to scold and shame and yell at the other side. And after a while ordinary people just tune out or don’t bother to vote at all.”

Democrats are likely to view clapping over a few ill-chosen words from the president, whether they were intended or not, as trivial at a time when Harris is warning that next week the country could elect a man she Tuesday blew out like a man. “a petty tyrant.”

And verbal missteps by Biden and other Democrats pale in comparison to the often vulgar rhetoric and unbridled commentary of the Republican candidate, who recently made a crude comment about the anatomy of the late pro golf legend Arnold Palmer at the start of a rally. And while Biden’s notoriously loose tongue got him into trouble, the significance of his remarks is not as serious as a false claim by Trump in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night that Democrats are already cheating in Lancaster County in what appeared to be his latest. attempt to cast doubt on the fairness of the election in advance.

But the fallout from Hillary Clinton’s “deplorable” comment in 2016 showed that imprecise and implied contempt can haunt candidates and their surrogates in the election playoffs. In a neck-and-neck race that could be decided by just thousands of votes in swing states, neither Harris nor Trump can afford to make mistakes. And the history of presidential elections is littered with incidents that seem insignificant at the time but can have wider consequences. Hinchcliffe’s bashing of Puerto Rico is a classic example, as it has left Trump scrambling to appease Puerto Rican voters in Lehigh County, a key Pennsylvania area where he had hoped to eat into the Democratic vote.

Tuesday’s controversy is also likely to renew speculation about Biden’s future role in the campaign. After all, he was forced to shelve his re-election bid after a disastrous CNN debate appearance in June that exposed his advanced age and called into question his cognition. While he has made several appearances with Harris, he has been used sparingly by her campaign in recent weeks. And as CNN reported Tuesday, his misdemeanors have prompted reactions — from eye rolls to outright anger — from some Harris campaign aides.

Last week, referring to Trump in New Hampshire, the president said, “We’ve got to lock him up,” before quickly adding, “Politically, lock him up. Lock him out. That’s what we’re going to do.” The comment went viral on conservative talk radio and social media as Republicans claimed it vindicated Trump’s claims that the Justice Department had weaponized the GOP nominee.In Arizona on Friday, Biden referred to former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived to stay shot in the head at a 2011 campaign in the past tense, suggesting she was no longer alive.

While aides have previously brushed off such ties as “vintage Biden,” noting his history of gaffes and the president’s propensity for misspoke, they also acknowledge there is no room for error.

“We’re in ‘Do No Harm’ mode,” said an official involved in discussions about Biden’s role, according to reporting by CNN’s Kayla Tausche, MJ Lee and Kevin Liptak.

That approach may have been derailed Tuesday night.