Biden clarifies ‘garbage’ comment after fresh US election row

President Joe Biden has tried to clarify comments that triggered a fresh row, after he was accused of calling supporters of Donald Trump “garbage”.

He was responding to comic Tony Hinchcliffe who sparked controversy by calling Puerto Rico, a US territory, an “island of garbage” during a Trump rally on Sunday.

“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden was initially quoted as saying on Tuesday, prompting an angry Republican backlash.

The White House later released a transcript which included an apostrophe, and said the president was talking about the words of Hinchcliffe, and not all Trump supporters.

“The only garbage I see floating out there is (Trump’s) supporter’s… his demonisation of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American,” the transcript reads.

Biden himself later addressed his video call with non-profit organisation Voto Latino, writing on X: “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.

“His demonisation 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 Trump’s backers have seized upon the comments, making comparisons with a controversial remark by Hillary Clinton in 2016 during Trump’s first run for office, when she said half of Trump’s supporters were from a “basket of deplorables”.

As the war of words escalated, Trump himself suggested Kamala Harris – his rival for the White House – was running a “campaign of hate”.

During his campaign, Trump has repeatedly referred to his opponents as “the enemy from within” – rhetoric that Harris described as divisive.

Referring to the Biden comments, Trump said: “You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American people.”

The Madison Square Garden rally referenced by Biden – during which Hinchcliffe and others sparked offence with a range of comments – has now been defended by Trump as a “love fest”.

He acknowledged that “somebody said some bad things” but said he did not think it was “a big deal”.

He stopped short of issuing an apology demanded by prominent figures from the island itself, which is a US territory. A number of Republicans – including from neighbourhoods with strong Latino populations – were outraged.

In Philadelphia, in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, members of the 90,000-strong Puerto Rican population told the BBC they would not forget the joke.

Residents of Puerto Rico – a US island territory in the Caribbean – are unable to vote in presidential elections, but the large diaspora in the US can.

Hinchcliffe himself has defended his material, saying his critics “have no sense of humour”.

Biden’s comments on the furore threatened to overshadow a rally on Tuesday evening by Kamala Harris, who is running for the White House as the Democratic nominee after Biden pulled out earlier in the contest.

Harris delivered what her campaign has called her “closing argument” in Washington DC – at the spot from which Trump spoke shortly before a riot by his supporters at the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021.

She urged voters to “turn the page on the drama and the conflict” in American politics.

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.