As millions of Americans prepared to cast their vote in the Nov. 5, 2024, presidential election, U.S. President Joe Biden set off a firestorm with a remark during a video call with Voto Latino, a Democratic-leaning civic engagement organization that aims to increase the political participation of Latinos. On the Oct. 29 call, Biden delivered a sharp rebuke of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's characterization of Puerto Rico as "a floating island of garbage" during a Oct. 27 rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The way Biden phrased his criticism drew the ire of the former president's supporters, who, based on what they heard, took him to be characterizing them as "garbage" (archived):
This post on X by conservative pundit Charlie Kirk had accumulated 7.2 million views and 26,000 likes as of this writing. U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, a Republican from Florida, also posted about the comment, and included a clip of the video (archived):
In the three-second clip, Biden appeared to be saying "the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters."
"Obama called us clingers. Hillary called us deplorables. Kamala calls us fascists. And Biden just called us garbage," Donalds wrote.
His post had received 970,000 views and 76,000 likes as of this writing.
Meanwhile, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, singled out the political news website Politico for the "falsehood" of interpreting Biden's remark in a different way (archived) by saying he was referring to the "hatred" of Trump's supporters who said denigrating things about other Americans:
Vance then replied to his own post with a longer clip of the video (archived):
The video showed Biden saying:
… or a Puerto Rico, where I'm fr— in my home state of Delaware, they're good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American.
Later, Politico reporter Jonathan Lemire revised his report using the full quote as transcribed by the White House (emphasis ours):
President Joe Biden rallied Latino voters Tuesday night and delivered a stinging rebuke of the racist rhetoric aimed at Puerto Rico during Donald Trump's weekend rally.
A comedian who appeared ahead of Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday called the American territory an "island of garbage."
"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter's — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American," Biden said in a Zoom call with the organization Voto Latino, according to a White House transcript.
The controversy hinged on the absence or existence of a possessive apostrophe after the word "supporter."
The White House Transcript
Republicans argued that Biden had made a blanket statement about Trump's supporters, plural.
Shortly after Biden made the comment, the White House published its official transcript of his remarks, writing "his supporter's," — singular and possessive — ostensibly referring to Hinchcliffe's stance on Latinos. The full paragraph read:
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 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.
Then, about two days later, on Oct. 31, 2024, The Associated Press reported White House press officials had altered that passage before publishing it online. Citing two anonymous government officials and an email obtained by the AP, the news outlet reported:
The transcript released by the White House press office, however, rendered the quote with an apostrophe, reading "supporter's" rather than "supporters," which aides said pointed to Biden criticizing Hinchcliffe, not the millions of Americans who are supporting Trump for president.
The change was made after the press office "conferred with the president," according to an internal email from the head of the stenographers' office that was obtained by The AP. The authenticity of the email was confirmed by two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
In the purported email, an unidentified "supervisor" called the press office's handling of the matter "a breach of protocol and spoliation of transcript integrity between the Stenography and Press Offices," the AP reported.
We reached out to the White House's press office to independently verify whether officials had indeed altered the transcript before releasing it to the public and for its response to people who believe the alleged alteration may have been a breach of the 1978 Presidential Records Act. We will update this story when, or if, we receive a response.
After Biden spoke with Voto Latino, the president posted on X that he had zeroed in on Hinchcliffe and to reiterate that Hinchcliffe's view of Latinos was wrong (archived):
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.
The reality is that both the Republicans' initial interpretation and Biden's clarification of his remarks are plausible, and Snopes cannot divine what a person was thinking when they made a comment. Therefore, we can report only what people heard in the video and the White House's and Biden's explanation after the call.