Joe Biden is a liability to the Democrat Party. But they’re still keeping him around.
And now Biden’s biggest blunder yet may have just sunk Kamala’s campaign.
President Biden took a shot at Donald Trump’s supporters Tuesday, branding them as “garbage” even as Vice President Kamala Harris attempted to present the Democratic Party as a unifying force in her closing pitch to voters.
The 81-year-old president, often kept out of Harris’s spotlight on the campaign trail, made the controversial comment as he condemned comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s remarks during Trump’s Sunday rally, where Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage.”
“Donald Trump has no character. He doesn’t give a damn about the Latino community,” Biden stated during a campaign call at the White House, as first reported by NBC. “Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage.”
The remark instantly sparked comparisons to Hillary Clinton’s infamous 2016 “basket of deplorables” gaffe, which many believe contributed to her shocking defeat by galvanizing Trump supporters who felt alienated and belittled by the Democratic elite.
Even Clinton later admitted in her book What Happened that her remark was a factor in her loss. Now, with Biden following a similar line, many have wondered if Democrats learned anything from Clinton’s mistake.
X users quickly chimed in, drawing a line between Clinton’s misstep and Biden’s latest insult.
“Hillary Clinton 2016: ‘They’re deplorables.’ 2016 Election Winner: Donald J. Trump,” one user posted.
“They learned nothing. Hillary Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ comment was acknowledged by Dems to have been a huge mistake, but here’s Biden, *the sitting President* calling every Trump supporter ‘garbage,’” another added.
At his rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Trump responded to Biden’s insult, saying it was even more offensive than Clinton’s.
“Wow. That’s terrible,” he said. “You have to remember Hillary [Clinton] — she said ‘deplorable’ and then she said ‘irredeemable’ … ‘garbage’ I think is worse,” he added.
Meanwhile, some voters pointed out that Biden’s remark seemed to undermine Harris’s major closing pitch, intended as a rallying call for Democratic unity.
“Joe Biden once again manages to completely destroy what was supposed to be Kamala’s big night by calling half the country garbage 7 days before the election. He hates her guts,” one user commented on X.
“Any momentum or optics Kamala was hoping to gain on her big night was just squandered by Biden calling Trump supporters ‘garbage,’” another wrote.
In a scramble to manage the fallout, Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates claimed the president’s comments were aimed specifically at “the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage.’”
The White House transcript of Biden’s remarks even added an apostrophe, implying that Biden had targeted a single supporter’s hateful words rather than all Trump supporters.
But conservatives were quick to criticize the clarification as a spin job.
“Politico just added an apostrophe to the quote, making it seem like Biden is just labeling one supporter as garbage. This is literal state propaganda,” popular X account End Wokeness posted.
Kyle Jane Kremer, executive director of Women For America First, called out the White House’s attempted revision. “Joe Biden’s words were clear that he was stating Trump’s supporters were the garbage,” she posted on X.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
