GREEN BAY, Wis. — Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday repeatedly blasted comments made a day earlier by President Joe Biden that appeared to call supporters of the former president “garbage.”
Trump kicked off his rally here Wednesday evening by criticizing Biden’s remarks while wearing an orange safety vest after he was greeted at the city’s airport by a garbage truck adorned with Trump flags. That came after he attacked Vice President Kamala Harris over Biden’s line earlier at a campaign event in North Carolina.
It’s the latest turn in a back-and-forth over heated race-based rhetoric that has taken center stage less than a week before Election Day.
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Biden’s comments — which he and the White House quickly tried to clarify, insisting he did not mean to apply to Trump supporters — came on a Latino outreach call in support of Harris’ campaign and were in response to questions about a weekend Trump rally at Madison Square Garden where one of the opening speakers, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
“Joe Biden finally said what he and Kamala really think of our supporters,” Trump said during a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. “He called them ‘garbage,’ and they mean it, even though, without question, my supporters are far higher quality than crooked Joe, lyin’ Kamala.”
“My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple: You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans. You just can’t,” he added.
Trump rolled out a similar line of criticism during his Green Bay rally. Prior to the event, he briefly sat in the passenger seat of the garbage truck at the airport and said that Biden “should be ashamed of himself.”
On Tuesday evening, Biden referred to the Puerto Rican community as “good, decent, honorable people,” and added: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done.”
The White House quickly insisted that Biden was not calling Trump’s supporters “garbage.” They released a transcript that added an apostrophe to the word “supporters”: “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 also posted a clarification on X, saying that he was referring 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,” Biden added. “That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.”
Biden’s comments offered a welcome distraction for Trump, who had been facing heavy criticism for the Garden event, which was packed with a series of crude and racist comments.
Speakers referred to Harris’ “pimp handlers” and to her as “the devil.” Trump’s campaign distanced itself from Hinchcliffe’s comments but otherwise said the New York event was a successful part of his closing message in the final week before Election Day.
On Tuesday during a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Trump said the Madison Square Garden event was an “absolute love fest,” and tried to deflate pushback he has gotten over Hinchcliffe’s comments.
Speaking to reporters in Green bay, Trump sought to distance himself from Hinchcliffe.
“I don’t know anything about the comedian. I don’t know who his is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was just a statement that he made. He’s a comedian. What can I tell you?” Trump said.
The joke about Puerto Rico, however, has had political consequences for Trump.
Puerto Rican trap and reggaeton singer Nicky Jam said in an Instagram post Wednesday that he is no longer supporting Trump after the Hinchcliffe joke. He said he originally supported the former president because he “thought he would be best for the economy.”
Biden’s comment, however, gives Trump an easy way to flip the script, like in 2016 when Democratic nominee Hilary Clinton said “half” of Trump’s supporters belonged in a “basket of deplorables,” a phrase Trump’s supporters eventually embraced and used as a way to cast Clinton as out of touch.
A Trump campaign official said they were planning to aggressively use the Biden remark to hit Democrats.
“We are gonna blot out the sun with them,” the official said.
The Biden comments also threatened to cloud out a Harris’ rally Tuesday night at which she offered her closing argument. The huge event was delivered at the Ellipse, the same place Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, before his supporters rioted at the U.S. Capitol.
On Wednesday, Harris was forced to distance herself from Biden’s comments.
“Let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” she told reporters.
