US Election 2024: White House altered record of Biden’s ‘garbage’ remarks?

US Election 2024: White House press officials allegedly altered the official transcript of a video call in which President Joe Biden appeared to take a ‘garbage’ swipe at Donald Trump’s Republican supporters.
President Biden’s trigerred a political backlash earlier this week when, during a conversation with the nonprofit group Voto Latino, referred to ‘garbage’ in a comment that some Republican critics interpreted as targeting Trump’s voter base. Biden’s comments had come responding to racist comments at a Trump rally made by the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to the US island territory of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
Biden, according to a transcript prepared by the official White House stenographers, told the Latino group on a Tuesday evening video call, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
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 criticising Hinchcliffe, not the millions of Americans who are supporting Trump for president, according to a report by news agency AP quoting two anonymous officials and an email.
The change in the transcript, according to the AP report, was made after the press office ‘conferred with the president,’ The report cites an internal email from the head of the stenographers’ office that was obtained by the news agency. The authenticity of the email was confirmed by two government officials, the report said.
Biden’s comments have since fueled GOP criticisms, with former President Donald Trump’s campaign team quickly alleging that the president was disparaging Trump’s supporters.
The supervisor, in the email, called the press office’s handling of the matter “a breach of protocol and spoilation of transcript integrity between the Stenography and Press Offices”.
“If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,” the supervisor wrote, adding, “Our Stenography Office transcript — released to our distro, which includes the National Archives — is now different than the version edited and released to the public by Press Office staff.”
Even Vice President Harris,the Democratic nominee, distanced herself from any perceived slight against Trump voters, emphasising inclusivity and her long-standing dedication to serving the entire electorate. She called for treating Americans of differing ideologies with respect.
The Trump campaign quickly moved to fundraise off the quote, and the next day, Trump himself held a photo op inside a garbage truck to try to capitalise on Biden’s criticism.
The press office had asked the stenographers to quickly produce a transcript of the call amid the firestorm, the report said citing the email.
President Biden himself took to social media to say that he he was not calling all Trump supporters garbage and that he was referring specifically to the “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally.”
The stenographers office is charged with preparing accurate transcripts of public and private remarks of the president for preservation by the National Archives and distribution to the public.
White House press secretary Andrew Bates that evening also posted on X the edited version of the quote and wrote that Biden was referring ”to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as garbage.’”
(With AP inputs)