Kamala Harris delivered the closing argument of her campaign on Tuesday night, telling about 75,000 people assembled on the Ellipse in Washington that she will work to deliver for everyday Americans, while Donald Trump is a “petty tyrant” who’s “obsessed with revenge.”
But her last major speech of the campaign is being overshadowed by an argument over whether there was an apostrophe in a remark Joe Biden made about Trump supporters on Tuesday night.
“Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” Biden said on a call with the group Voto Latino. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
The White House claimed Biden said, “his supporter’s demonization,” referring only to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating pile of garbage” during the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. But Republicans said Biden’s remark should be interpreted with no apostrophe, meaning he denounced all Trump supporters as “garbage.” The Trump campaign instantly seized on the remark, casting it as a repeat of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 “basket of deplorables” gaffe and attempting to turn the controversy over Hinchcliffe’s racist joke on the Harris campaign.
Here’s a roundup of responses to Biden’s “gaffe” from politicians and commentators.
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The response from Democrats
Biden quickly tried to clean up his remarks, saying in a Tuesday night X post that he was referring to “hateful rhetorical about Puerto Rico” as “garbage,” not Trump supporters:
Harris noted that the president had “clarified his comments” in her response on Wednesday morning, adding that she “strongly” disagrees with criticizing people over which candidate they support.
“Let me be clear: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” she said. “You heard my speech last night and continuously 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.”
Her running mate, Tim Walz, gave a similar response on Good Morning America, saying: “The president has clarified his remarks. Let’s be very clear, the vice-president and I have made it absolutely clear that we want everyone as a part of this. Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric is what needs to end.”
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The response from Republicans
Just minutes after Biden made the remark on Tuesday night, Senator Marco Rubio dramatically shared the “breaking news” with Trump onstage at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
“He’s talking about the Border Patrol, he’s talking about nurses, he’s talking about everyday Americans who love their country and want to dream big again and support you, Mr. President,” Rubio said, calling for an apology from the Harris campaign.
“That’s terrible,” Trump responded. “So you have — remember Hillary, she said ‘deplorable’ … ‘garbage’ I think is worse.”
In an X post that went up shortly after midnight, Trump — who compared America to a “garbage can” days earlier — said he is running a “campaign of positive solutions to save America” and accused Harris of running a “campaign of hate”:
Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, who responded to the Puerto Rico joke by saying people need to “stop getting so offended at every little thing,” called Biden’s remark “disgusting” and inexcusable:
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The response from commentators
New York’s Jonathan Chait called the controversy “pure Republican hypocrisy,” noting that the GOP is seizing on an ambiguous Biden remark, though they’ve been “insisting on interpreting their words in the most generous possible light”:
Look, Biden has always been gaffe prone, and he’s gotten even more prone to garbling his words. There’s no reason he should be opining on the campaign other than his apparently unsuppressible ego. But the Republican campaign to uncharitably interpret his comment, then go into offense-taking mode should not be seen as anything other than pure hypocritical bad faith.
Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University, doubted that the remark will have the same impact on this election as “deplorables” did in 2016. He told Newsweek:
The MAGA base is already locked in. This is unlikely to have much impact with them … Biden has already walked back his comment, but perhaps more importantly, and unlike Hillary Clinton in 2016, he is not the candidate … Campaigns can still be held to account for what surrogates say and do on the trail, but only to a certain extent. Ultimately, the candidates’ words and actions matter much more.
Podcaster and former Barack Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau also noted that the “garbage” comment did not come from Harris, and the GOP candidate regularly calls his political opponents the “enemy from within“:
This post has been updated.
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