Harris rejects Biden trash comments about Trump supporters

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday distanced herself from President Joe Biden’s controversial comment that appeared to label supporters of Donald Trump as “garbage.”

“I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris told reporters before the Democratic presidential nominee flew to Raleigh, North Carolina, for campaign events.

“You heard my speech last night. I think the work I do is about representing all people, whether they support me or not,” Harris said. “I want to be the president of all Americans.”

Harris also said Biden had “clarified” the comment he made Tuesday.

But she stressed that her campaign is looking for every vote she can get – and is anxious not to lose any – less than a week before Election Day.

“I’m going to spend full time talking to people, regardless of who they voted for last time,” Harris said.

The vice president said she had spoken with Biden on Tuesday night, but that they did not discuss what he had said earlier that night.

Biden had been on a video call Tuesday about outreach to Latino voters when the conversation turned to the several racist jokes comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made at a rally for the GOP nominee and former president in New York City on Sunday.

“Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,'” Biden said on the call.

“They are good, decent, honorable people,” Biden said, referring to Puerto Ricans. “The only garbage I see floating out there are his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done.”

That comment quickly drew criticism from Republicans who supported Trump. Within hours, the White House took the rare step of releasing a redacted transcript of Biden’s remarks. In this version, Biden appeared to say the “garbage” was Hinchcliffe’s demonization of Latinos, not Trump supporters.

Biden himself then took the even more unusual step of making his own statement, insisting he had no intention of calling Trump supporters “garbage.”

“Earlier today, I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump supporters at his rally in Madison Square Garden as trash — which is the only word I can think of to describe it,” Biden said in a tweet at X late Tuesday night. .

“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that meeting do not reflect who we are as a nation.”

Despite the cleanup efforts, Biden’s comment — broken or otherwise — threw a monkey wrench into the Harris campaign’s plan to highlight her promise to govern for all Americans, regardless of party.

Instead, Harris allies who appeared on Wednesday’s morning news programs now had to answer questions about what Biden said.

Biden’s comment also complicated the Harris campaign’s plan to capitalize on the backlash over Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico.

Pennsylvania, perhaps the most prized swing state in the 2024 election, has nearly 500,000 residents in Puerto Rico, which represents the largest share of Latino voters in the state.

Hinchcliffe’s comment threatened to alienate at least some Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

In the 2016 election, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania by fewer than 45,000 votes, or less than 1% of the vote.

In 2020, Biden beat Trump in the state by fewer than 81,000 votes, a margin of less than 1.2%.