WASHINGTON – Joe Biden denounced offensive jokes that podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe made about Puerto Rico during Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally over the weekend, but the president also made a comment some prominent Republicans quickly called insulting to the former president’s supporters.
“Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” Biden said during a Zoom call Voto Latino, an organization encouraging Latino and Hispanic youth to become politically engaged. The president said the Puerto Rican people he knew in his home state of Delaware were “good, decent, honorable people.”
Biden added that the only “garbage” he saw “floating out there” were supporters, though it was unclear if he was referring just to Hinchcliffe or all of Trump’s fans. The White House released a transcript Tuesday night attempting to clarify that the president was referring to Hinchcliffe’s act.
Biden’s comment was met with quick rebuke by Republican lawmakers.
“He just called half the country garbage. Despicable,” wrote Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in a social media post.
Trump, who was holding a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, described Biden’s remarks as “terrible,” and likened them to Hillary Clinton’s comments calling some of Trump’s supporters “deplorables” in 2016.
“Garbage, I think, is worse,” Trump said, before mockingly asking the crowd at the rally to forgive Biden because he didn’t know what he was saying.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, later in the evening, Biden said that he was referring to “the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter,” Hinchcliffe. “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.”
White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement that Biden was referring to the “hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally” as “garbage” and posted a transcript of Biden’s comments on X.
Biden’s criticism came as Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a speech in Washington, D.C. about her desire to move the United States past an era of divisive rhetoric and name calling to one marked by unity and compromise.
When reached for comment, the Harris campaign referred USA TODAY to Bates’ statement.
Harris and Trump have traded personal barbs at one another throughout the campaign – each calling the other a fascist, among other insults – while also to painting themselves as the candidate who will repair partisan division in the country.
Contributing: David Jackson and Rebecca Morin, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden sparks GOP backlash with ‘garbage’ comment about Trump MSG rally
