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On Tuesday night, President Joe Biden called half the country “garbage.” Think I’m exaggerating? Watch for yourself (video via @SteveGuest/X):
While Kamala Harris was delivering her campaign’s closing pitch at Washington, D.C.’s Ellipse, promising voters to “always put country above party and above self,” Biden was cooking up an October surprise. On a call with Voto Latino, a self-described group of “Latinx voters,” the president was trying to hit back against right-wing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who joked at a Trump rally on Sunday that Puerto Rico is a “floating island of garbage.” Biden’s retort upstaged Harris in the worst possible way: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” he said.
The White House press team did their best to take out the trash, issuing a transcript of his comments that added an apostrophe to the word supporters. The singular possessive supporter’s, you see, meant that Biden was referring only to Hinchcliffe’s garbage—not Trump’s!
Right. Sure.
It’s one thing for the White House to spin. We’re in the homestretch of a close election. It’s another for the press to rush into damage-control mode for Biden and Harris. Just behold these gems:
“As somebody who had a stutter growing up, it’s very obvious to me that there was an apostrophe at the end of ‘supporters,’ ” said CNN panelist Franklin Leonard.
“Did Biden Call Trump Supporters ‘Garbage’? It Comes Down to an Apostrophe,” The Washington Post published under “analysis.”
“ ‘Supporters’ or ‘Supporter’s’? Biden Comments About Trump ‘Garbage’ Rally Anger the GOP,” wrote CBS News.
“Did Biden Mean to Call Trump Supporters ‘Garbage,’ or Just Stumble Defending Puerto Rico?” writes the Los Angeles Times.
“Biden ‘Garbage’ Controversy Is Pure Republican Hypocrisy,” exclaimed New York magazine, who accused “conservative snowflakes” of having “a fainting spell over his stumble.”
Politico rushed to update their reports to include the White House apostrophe. The correction notice reads: “This report was updated to correct President Joe Biden’s quote.”
These are the same outlets that turned an obscure comedian’s nasty joke about Puerto Rico being “garbage” into a days-long national news cycle. But when the president of the United States said the same of his opposition’s supporters? Well, nothing could be less important.
On Tuesday evening, Biden posted on X that “all I meant to say” was that the comedian’s rhetoric was “hateful.” Axios’s Alex Thompson asked how the White House knew Biden meant supporter’s and not supporters when they issued the transcript. Did Biden tell them that? (The spokesperson would agree to answer only off the record, an offer Thompson declined. After the story was published, the spokesperson told Thompson that staff had checked with Biden but refused to give details.)
As Bari Weiss noted in a piece we published Wednesday afternoon, the legacy press is deeply invested in a Harris victory. White House reporters insisted that Biden was sharp as a tack when they knew he wasn’t. Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally was compared by MSNBC and others to a 1939 pro-Nazi rally. And now, Biden didn’t really say what we all heard him say.
Harris at least seems to realize that Biden’s comment, whether supporters or supporter’s, was deeply unhelpful, and had more than a whiff of deplorables about it. On Wednesday, she threw the president under the bus, telling reporters that Biden had “clarified” what he meant, but in any case “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.” Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro also distanced himself from Biden, telling CNN he “would never insult” any American who “chose to support a candidate that I didn’t support.”
And Trump? Well, he had a field day, posing at the wheel of a garbage truck emblazoned with his name. “This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden,” he said.
Madeleine Kearns is an associate editor at The Free Press. Follow her on X @MadeleineKearns.
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