NYT (“Biden Appears to Insult Trump Supporters as ‘Garbage,’ but Quickly Tries to Clarify“):
President Biden on Tuesday denounced racist language at former President Donald J. Trump’s recent rally but appeared to insult Trump supporters as “garbage,” prompting waves of criticism from Republicans.
The White House quickly objected to that interpretation of the president’s remarks, arguing that he was instead describing the racist language as “garbage,” not Trump supporters.
The comments came as Mr. Biden was addressing Latino supporters by video. “Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” Mr. Biden said, referring to a riff by Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian and Trump supporter who spoke at the rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
Mr. Biden said Puerto Ricans are “good, decent honorable people.” Then he went on: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
The White House released a transcript that showed Mr. Biden was saying “his supporter’s” demonization, meaning that Mr. Hinchcliffe’s demonization was garbage.
But Republicans seized on the seeming gaffe, comparing it to a comment by Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she referred to Trump supporters as “deplorables.”
Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate, said: “This is disgusting. Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country.” Just one day earlier, Mr. Vance brushed off the Puerto Rico island-of-garbage comment, saying, “We have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America.”
Mr. Biden issued a statement on social media trying to clarify.
“Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage — which is the only word I can think of to describe it,” he wrote. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.”
But regardless of his intent, Mr. Biden’s words sparked backlash against his party and effectively moved the spotlight — at least temporarily — away from Vice President Kamala Harris on the evening in which she delivered the closing argument of her campaign. Ms. Harris has tried to persuade voters that she represents change while being careful not to criticize Mr. Biden.
AP (“Biden suggests Trump supporters are ‘garbage’ after comic’s insult of Puerto Rico“):
President Joe Biden took a swipe against Donald Trump’s supporters on Tuesday as he reacted to the Republican presidential nominee’s weekend rally at Madison Square Garden, which was overshadowed by crude and racist rhetoric.
In a call organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino, Biden responded to a comic at Trump’s rally who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Biden’s initial comments were garbled.
“Just 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, I don’t know the Puerto Rican that I know, the Puerto Rico where I’m fr — in my home state of Delaware. They’re good, decent honorable people,” he said.
The president then added: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Biden “referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage.’”
CNN’s Stephen Collinson claims, “Biden may have handed Trump a big assist with his ‘garbage’ gaffe.”
Joe Biden had largely been an afterthought one week before the election in which he’d once hoped to win a second term.
Not anymore.
The president inadvertently injected himself into the homestretch of the campaign and may have handed a big assist to his erstwhile rival, ex-President Donald Trump, who is struggling to quell a furor over his bigotry-filled rally at Madison Square Garden earlier this week.
Biden mentioned Puerto Rico, slandered as a “floating island of garbage” by a comedian at Trump’s event on Sunday night. But his clumsy defense of the self-governing American territory — and the vital swing voters in its diaspora on the US mainland — sparked a new political firestorm and distracted from Vice Kamala President Harris’ big closing argument speech against a White House backdrop on Tuesday night.
[A summary of the White House walkback]
But the damage may already have been done.
Biden’s comment drew immediate comparisons with then-Democratic nominee Hillary’s Clinton’s remark in 2016 that half of Trump’s supporters should be “put into the basket of deplorables” because of their “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic” views. Her remarks became a rallying call for Trump and conservative media and remain a badge of honor for Trump fans who view East Coast Democratic elites as condescending and disdainful of their way of life.
And Trump’s campaign seized on Biden’s remarks to try to create the same kind of dynamic, claiming that the ex-president is supported by “Latinos, Black voters, union workers, angel moms, law enforcement officers, border patrol agents, and Americans of all faiths,” while his opponents “have labeled these great Americans as fascists, Nazis, and now, garbage.” The Trump campaign’s 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 result. But in the vicious heat of the last week of the deadlocked presidential campaign, when even a few imprecise words can wreak significant political consequences, it may not matter what Biden really meant. Perception is everything.
Just when Harris’ team wanted to keep the attention on Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, which played into her contrast message on Tuesday night, the president handed Harris a political mess. She’s now almost certain to be asked whether she also regards Trump’s backers as “garbage.” Her answer will only prolong the story. The former president is also likely to seize on the gaffe to argue that Democrats view working Americans in the heartland with contempt.
A Trump fundraising email Tuesday evening read: “FIRST Hillary called you a DEPLORABLE! THEN they called you a FASCIST! And moments ago Kamala’s boss Biden called you GARBAGE!”
His campaign has already been trying to twist fallout from claims that Trump pined for the kind of generals that served Adolf Hitler into an argument that Harris believes all of his supporters are Nazis.
Biden’s “garbage” remark may also offer Trump an opening to finally spin his way out of the backlash about Puerto Rico caused by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at the New York rally. “Probably he shouldn’t have been there,” Trump said of the comedian in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that aired Tuesday evening. 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 contempt for the ex-president’s supporters came at exactly the moment that Harris is trying to come across as a unifying figure to win over Republicans who are disaffected with Trump’s extremism but are not yet ready to take the leap to vote for a Democrat.
Do I find it plausible that Biden meant “his supporter’s” rather than “his supporters”? Yes.
Do I find it equally plausible that an old man with diminished capacity was simply ranting? I do.
Do I think this will have a significant impact on how those who haven’t yet voted will do so between now and Tuesday? I don’t.
Joe Biden is not running for President. While Kamala Harris is saddled with his unpopular legacy without being able to differentiate herself from his policies, it’s hard to imagine his comment meaning much. Much less anyone who isn’t a die-hard Trump voter—who was therefore already going to vote for Trump—being all that upset by it.
