Vice President Kamala Harris is distancing herself from her boss’s description of former president Trump’s supporters as “garbage.”
“I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris told reporters from Joint Base Andrews.
“You heard my speech last night. I believe the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not. I will be a President for all Americans.”
Vice President Harris: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for. You heard my speech last night. I believe the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not. I will be a President for all Americans pic.twitter.com/zVk3oEcpBG
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 30, 2024
Biden made the comments on a Zoom call with a Latino group last night during a discussion about comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s controversial joke about Puerto Ricans at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last weekend.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden said. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
Biden and his staff quickly tried to clean up the mess, releasing a transcript with an apostrophe to suggest Biden was only talking about Hinchliffe and not Trump’s entire supporter base. Right on cue, mainstream news outlets ran with the transcript and framed the story around Republicans attacking Biden.
“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 demonization 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,” Biden said in a statement on X.
Harris delivered her closing message at the Ellipse in downtown Washington, D.C., to an estimated 75,000 supporters. The Ellipse was the same spot where Trump encouraged a mob of his supporters to go to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, where they proceeded to riot and assault dozens of police officers.
After spending much of her presidential campaign casting her opponent as a fascist and a fundamental threat to American democracy, Harris pivoted to a unity message and called for turning down the divisiveness of American politics.
The firestorm generated by Biden’s comments quickly overshadowed Harris’s Tuesday night speech and received comparisons to Hillary Clinton’s infamous “deplorables” sneer eight years ago. At a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump said Biden’s remark was worse than Clinton’s and mocked Biden’s old age.
GOP vice presidential nominee Senator J. D. Vance (R., Ohio) and Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) lead the chorus of Republicans who denounced Biden’s statement and defended Trump supporters. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro (D) joined in on the action and said he would never insult citizens of his state who vote differently.
Vance and other conservatives singled out Politico reporter and MSNBC commentator Jonathan Lemire for leading the media’s apparent attempt to help Biden clean up the mess he made.