First lady Jill Biden’s former press secretary is torching the White House’s attempt to cover up President Biden’s ‘garbage’ comment, calling it a ‘bonehead move’ that they have attempted before.
The president unleashed a storm of controversy by calling supporters of former President Donald Trump ‘garbage’ on a Tuesday call with Hispanic activist group Voto Latino.
During the call, Biden criticized Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally for a comedian’s joke calling Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’ saying that ‘the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.’
After the call, the White House released an official transcript of the call in which Biden’s comment was written as ‘the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s,’ insinuating that the president was referring to the comedian instead of all Trump supporters.
‘The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been,’ read the transcript.
Posting a screenshot of the transcript to social media, Andrew Bates, the White House senior deputy press secretary and deputy assistant to the president, claimed that Biden ‘referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage.’’
Michael LaRosa, Jill Biden’s former press secretary, meanwhile, wrote on X that the White House’s attempt to transcribe ‘supporters’ as ‘supporter’s,’ was ‘a bonehead move and one they’ve been caught making before.’
LaRosa also reposted another post that pointed out that Biden had previously expressed shock in an NBC News interview over Trump supporters’ vitriol toward him.
‘I’ve never seen a circumstance where you ride through certain rural areas of the country and people have signs there stand — big Trump signs with — m — middle — signs saying ‘F Biden’ and the little kid standing there putting up his middle finger,’ Biden said in a July 15 interview, according to an NBC transcript.
Trump responded to Biden’s remark by calling it ‘terrible’ and worse than Hillary Clinton calling his supporters ‘deplorables’ in 2016.
‘Garbage, I think, is worse,’ he said. ‘But he doesn’t know. You have to please forgive him.’
‘Please forgive him for not knowing what he said,’ Trump said. ‘These people are terrible, terrible, terrible to say a thing like that. But he really doesn’t know. He really, honestly, he doesn’t. And I’m convinced that he likes me more than he likes Kamala. But that’s a terrible thing.’
In a second response, Trump wrote, ‘While I am running a campaign of positive solutions to save America, Kamala Harris is running a campaign of hate.’
‘Now, on top of everything, Joe Biden calls our supporters ‘garbage.’ You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American People. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have shown they are both unfit to be President of the United States,’ Trump wrote.
Vice President Kamala Harris was asked about Biden’s remark on Wednesday morning. Harris said that she had spoken to Biden since the call but that his ‘garbage’ remark did not come up in their conversation.
‘First of all, he clarified his comments, but let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,’ she said. ‘I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not. And as president of the United States, I will be a president for all Americans, whether you vote for me or not.’
