Biden clarifies “garbage” comment after new US election dispute

President Joe Biden has sought to clarify comments that sparked a new row as he condemned a joke by a Donald Trump-supporting comedian.

On Sunday, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe sparked controversy when he called Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, a “garbage island” during a Trump rally. Trump has distanced himself from the remark.

Biden tried to take Hinchcliffe's words in a different direction during a Zoom interview on Tuesday, as the 2024 US election campaign entered its final week.

Some who listened to his comments believed he was attacking Trump's “supporters” in general, but he later insisted he was only attacking Hinchcliffe's words.

The White House released a transcript that attempted to show that the placement of an apostrophe made all the difference in the president's opinion during a video call with the nonprofit Voto Latino.

“The only trash I see floating out there is from (Trump's) supporters – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and un-American,” Biden was quoted as saying in the transcript.

Biden himself later wrote down

“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That's all I wanted to say. The comments at this rally do not reflect who we are as a nation.”

But Trump's supporters have seized on the comments, drawing comparisons to a controversial remark made by Hillary Clinton in 2016 during Trump's first candidacy, when she said half of Trump's supporters came from a “basket of deplorables.”

As the war of words escalated, Trump himself suggested that Kamala Harris – his rival for the White House – was waging a “campaign of hate.”

Referring to the Biden comments, he said: “You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American people.”

The Madison Square Garden rally mentioned by Biden, where Hinchcliffe and others caused a stir with a series of comments, has now been defended by Trump as a “love fest.”

He acknowledged that “someone said some bad things” but said he didn't think it was “a big deal.”

He stopped short of issuing an apology that was demanded by prominent figures on the island itself, which is a U.S. territory. A number of Republicans – including those from neighborhoods with large Latino populations – were outraged.

In Philadelphia, in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, members of the 90,000-strong Puerto Rican population told the BBC they would not forget the joke.

Residents of Puerto Rico – a US island territory in the Caribbean – are not allowed to vote in presidential elections, but the large diaspora in the US is.

Hinchcliffe himself has defended his material, saying his critics have “no sense of humor”.

Biden's comments about the riot threatened to overshadow a Tuesday night rally by Kamala Harris, who is running as the Democratic nominee for the White House after Biden earlier withdrew from the contest.

Harris gave what her campaign called her “closing statement” in Washington, D.C., at the spot from which Trump spoke shortly before an insurrection by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

She urged voters to “put the drama and conflict in American politics behind them.”

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher breaks down the race for the White House in his twice-weekly newsletter, US Election Unspun. Readers in the UK can Register here. People outside the UK can do this Register here.