Biden's 'Garbage' Reference to Trump Supporters Has White House Scrambling

President Joe Biden appeared to call Trump supporters "garbage" in a video that quickly went viral, stirring a furious backlash among conservatives and forcing the White House to issue a clarifying statement.

"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters ... his his his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it's un-American," Biden said in the video, denouncing a comedian's joke at a rally for former President Donald Trump that referred to Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage."

As the backlash gathered steam along with comparisons to Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark in 2016 about Trump's base, the White House issued transcripts with an apostrophe, which, it said, showed what the president really meant.

"And 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 -- I don't know the Puerto Rican that -- that I know -- or a Puerto Rico, where I'm fr- -- in my home state of Delaware, they're good, decent, honorable people," the transcript sent to Newsweek read. "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."

The president was referring to the "hateful rhetoric coming out of the Madison Square Garden rally" and not supporters of Trump, White House spokesman Andrew Bates told Newsweek.

During the video call for grassroots organization Voto Latino on Tuesday, Biden addressed the statements made by comedian Tony Hinchcilffe at Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden, during which Hinchcliffe took aim Puerto Rico.

Biden's comment has received immense backlash from Trump's supporters, including the former president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who wrote on X, formerly Twitter on Tuesday that Biden had called all Trump supporters "garbage," adding that it was "absolutely disgusting."

Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung also condemned Biden's remarks on X, writing that Vice President Kamala Harris and the president "HATE Americans and will do everything to crush us if they ever hold power again."

The president also addressed the backlash in a post to X, writing Tuesday night that he had "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 demonization of Latinos is unconscionable," Biden added. "That's all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don't reflect who we are as a nation."

Biden's remark, as it was understood by many on the right, mirrored Clinton's infamous 2016 denunciation of Trump supporters as a "basket of deplorables," a comment that Clinton later said she regretted and helped energize Trump's base in the weeks before that election.

Florida Representative Byron Donalds, Republican and close ally of Trump, attacked Biden's statement in a post to X on Tuesday, writing that Democrats "don't respect us."

"Obama called us clingers. Hillary called us deplorables. Kamala calls us fascists.
And Biden just called us garbage," Donalds wrote. "They don't respect us & don't want unity. But we do."

Trump also criticized Biden's comments during his rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night, telling his supporters, "That's terrible."

"You have, remember Hillary, she said deplorable, and then she said irredeemable, right?" Trump said, referring to Clinton's comments in 2016. "But she said deplorable, and that didn't work out. Garbage, I think, is worse, right? But he doesn't know, you have to please forgive him. Please forgive him, for he not knoweth what he said."

The president has done little campaigning for Harris, who has been under pressure to distinguish herself from the man she served under for nearly four years.

In contrast to Biden's combative tone, Harris made a plea to all Americans, including Republicans, at a rally attended by 75,000 people at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night. During her closing arguments, Harris depicted Trump as "unstable" and "obsessed with revenge" while also urging voters to turn the page on the rhetoric.

"As Americans, we rise and fall together," Harris said. "America, for too long, we have been consumed with too much division, chaos and mutual distrust. And it can be easy, then, to forget a simple truth: it doesn't have to be this way."

Harris' campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu told CNN late Tuesday that he thought Biden's comments were "unfortunate" but that the president had "cleaned them up a little bit" by explaining that he was referring to the rhetoric of Trump's rally, not "human beings."

Landrieu also contrasted Harris' rally Tuesday to Trump's speech at Madison Square Garden, saying that voters "should go back and look at all the speakers that spoke before Trump ascended to the stage and the speakers tonight at the Kamala Harris event."

"Ours was civic, it was civil, it was thoughtful. It was about coming together as one people," Landrieu added during his appearance on Laura Coates Live.

Newsweek reached out to Harris' campaign via email late Tuesday night for additional comment.

Update 10/29/24, 11:50 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include additional background.