Kamala Harris seeks to distance herself from Biden’s ‘garbage’ remark

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday sought to distance herself from President Joe Biden’s use of the word “garbage,” which the president deployed Tuesday when discussing Donald Trump’s supporters and the racist rhetoric at a weekend rally.

“I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris said to reporters before boarding Air Force Two for a campaign swing on Wednesday morning, noting that Biden had quickly clarified his comments to emphasize that he was referring to hateful rhetoric and not to Trump supporters in general.

“You heard my speech last night,” Harris said, referring to an appearance on the Ellipse where she emphasized the need for unity among Americans. “Throughout my career, I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not. And as president of the United States, I will be a president for all Americans, whether you vote for me or not.”

The most recent uproar began when Biden, in a Zoom call with Latino voters on Tuesday evening, brought up a racist insult toward Puerto Rico by a speaker at a Trump rally Sunday in New York. The comedian Tony Hinchcliffe had called the U.S. territory a “floating island of garbage” during the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, which featured racist and sexist comments from numerous speakers.

“Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage.’ They’re good, decent, honorable people. 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, according to an audio recording from a Washington Post reporter who listened in on the call.

[Did Biden call Trump supporters ‘garbage’? It comes down to an apostrophe.]

Trump and his surrogates seized on Biden’s remark to try to turn attention away from Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico comments, which have caused a multiday backlash, including in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, which is home to a sizable contingent of Puerto Ricans.

At a Harris rally in Harrisburg on Wednesday, a number of the vice president’s supporters waved Puerto Rican flags. While she did not address the comedian’s comments directly, Harris took on some of Trump’s more hard-hitting rhetoric in recent days, reiterating her message that she would invite those who disagree with her to the table.

“At this particular moment, it should be emphasized that unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy from within,” Harris said.

She was interrupted multiple times during her speech in Pennsylvania by Trump supporters as well as by people protesting the Biden administration’s Middle East policies, and she sought to use those disruptions to try to underline her point that she would not shut down dissenting viewpoints.

“We are fighting for our democracy. We love our democracy. It can be complicated at times, but it is the best system in the world,” Harris said after a repeated interruption.

Less than a week before Election Day, polls show Harris and Trump in a deadlocked race in the seven battleground states that will swing the election: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. The two candidates have spent the final weeks of the campaign repeatedly visiting those states, seeking to sway the tiny remaining sliver of undecided voters before Tuesday.

At a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Trump highlighted Biden’s comment to portray Democrats as elitists who look down on him and his supporters, saying, “They’ve treated you like garbage.”

He added, “Joe Biden finally said what he and Kamala really think of our supporters - he called them garbage. And they mean it.”

After landing for a second rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump took questions from reporters on the tarmac while leaning out of the passenger-side window of a garbage truck. “This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden,” Trump said. Asked if he owed the people of Puerto Rico an apology for the comments of the speaker at his rally, the former president said of Puerto Ricans, “They love me and I love them.”

Biden’s remark came during a brutal and often ugly final stretch of the campaign, as Trump and his surrogates have aimed a stream of accusations and demeaning comments at those who oppose him.

At a recent rally in Tempe, Arizona, Trump compared the United States to “a garbage can for the world” because of illegal border crossings. He and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), have falsely said that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets.

Trump has repeatedly called his political opponents the “enemy from within,” suggesting he would use the military to go after them. In May, he called them “Human Scum” in a social media post. At his Madison Square Garden rally Sunday, speakers hurled racist, sexist and otherwise demeaning insults against not only Puerto Ricans, but also Black people, Arabs, Muslims and migrants.

Trump has also repeatedly attacked Harris’s intelligence since she became the Democratic nominee in July, calling her “stupid,” “slow” and an “extremely low IQ person.” He recently called Harris a “s--- vice president.” Earlier this week, Vance said the best way to describe anyone who supports Harris is the term “dips---.”

The latest back-and-forth has created a moment, six days before the end of the campaign, in which the two candidates are fervently trying to stir up emotion among supporters by pointing to inflammatory comments by the other side.

The White House sought to limit any damage from Biden’s remark by saying he had been referring specifically to “the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as garbage,” according to a statement from spokesman Andrew Bates, and had not been characterizing Trump supporters more broadly.

The White House then put out two separate transcripts of the remarks. The first showed Biden referring to “supporters’” demonization of opponents - a plural possessive. A few hours later, the White House distributed a new transcript that used “supporter’s” - a singular possessive that apparently referred to the comedian alone.

But Biden’s remark seemed to clash with the closing argument that Harris delivered Tuesday at a massive rally on the Ellipse, where she vowed to be a president for all Americans regardless of whether they vote for her, contrasting her inclusiveness with Trump’s divisiveness.

Even as she was dogged Wednesday by questions about Biden’s comment, Harris tried to build on her message from Tuesday night and reach out to a broader swath of Americans with campaign stops in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“I pledge to seek common ground and common-sense solutions to the challenges you face,” Harris said during a visit to Raleigh, North Carolina. “I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress.”

And as in Pennsylvania, after being interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters in Raleigh, she reiterated her message, saying, “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table.”

For Trump, the furor carries other risks, including to his chances in Pennsylvania. Early on Wednesday, Trump posted a falsehood on his Truth Social account that Democrats saw as a concession that he is worried about the state.

“Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before,” Trump wrote. “REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES. Law Enforcement must act, NOW!” There is no evidence of election fraud or cheating in Pennsylvania or other states.

Trump on Wednesday also tried to use Biden’s comment to deflect the criticism lobbed by Harris, as well as some Republicans and former Trump officials, that he would rule like an authoritarian and abandon democratic norms. During her Tuesday speech on the Ellipse, Harris called Trump a “petty tyrant.”

“For the past nine years, Kamala and her party have called us racists, bigots, fascists, deplorables, irredeemables, Nazis, and they’ve called me Hitler,” Trump said to boos. “I’m called Hitler. I’m not Hitler.”

Late on Tuesday, shortly after Biden’s remark, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) joined Trump onstage in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and told the crowd that Biden had referred to Trump’s supporters as “garbage.”

Rubio added: “We are not garbage. We are patriots who love America.”

Trump called Biden’s comment “terrible” and referred to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 comments in which she described half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables.”

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Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.