Kamala Harris was forced to distance herself from President Biden on Wednesday after he appeared to dismiss Donald Trump’s supporters as “garbage”.
The vice-president, campaigning with less than a week to go until polling day, was put on the back foot by Biden’s gaffe, which overshadowed her rally in Washington on Tuesday night.
On a Zoom call with Latino voters, Biden condemned Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian who told a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York last week that Puerto Rico, where many Latino voters came from, was a “floating island of garbage”.
Biden said: “Donald Trump has no character. He doesn’t give a damn about the Latino community. Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s.”
The president turned out for a Halloween event at the White House on Wednesday…
KENT NISHIMURA/GETTY IMAGES
…where he appeared to bite a baby’s leg
On Wednesday Trump seized on the comments by appearing at the wheel of a garbage truck in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “Joe Biden should be ashamed of himself, if he knows what he’s even doing,” he said, before telling supporters at a rally: “Fifty million Americans are not garbage.”
Biden claimed he was referring to Hinchcliffe and other speakers at the rally, not all Trump supporters. The White House issued a transcript of Biden’s remarks that included an apostrophe in “supporter’s”, in an attempt to emphasise that he was speaking about the comedian.
The gaffe was a gift to Republicans who have played down Hinchcliffe’s remarks all week. It echoed Hillary Clinton’s infamous remark in 2016, when she denounced Trump supporters as “deplorables”. Clinton’s comment is still cited by Trump as emblematic of the contempt that America’s elite feels for ordinary voters.
Trump posted on X: “Now, on top of everything, Joe Biden calls our supporters ‘garbage’. You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American People.”
Watch Tony Hinchcliffe address Trump’s rally
JD Vance, Trump’s running-mate, called Biden’s remarks “disgusting”, adding: “Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country. There’s no excuse for this. I hope Americans reject it.”
Addressing the controversy, Harris said that she disagreed “with any criticism of people based on who they vote for”.
“I will represent all Americans, including those who don’t vote for me,” the Democratic candidate said as she embarked on a tour of swing states that will determine next week’s presidential election.
Democrats lamented that Biden’s gaffe had handed the initiative back to Trump. Hinchcliffe’s joke had angered Latino voters just as Trump had been courting this crucial voting bloc.
Trump has refused to express regret for the joke, acknowledging only that “somebody said some bad things” but “I can’t imagine it’s a big deal”.
Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, a critical swing state that is home to 560,000 Latino voters, said that Biden’s remarks were “certainly not words that I would choose”.
“I think it’s important that we remain focused on the contrast between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and not attacking supporters of either candidate,” Shapiro told CNN.
Tim Walz, Harris’s running-mate, played down Biden’s misstep. He told ABC: “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.”
In her speech near the White House on Tuesday night, Harris attacked Trump as a “petty tyrant” who was “obsessed with revenge”. Appealing to undecided voters, she promised to put country over party, giving Republicans “a seat at my table” if she were elected.
Biden’s gaffe underscored why the Harris campaign has kept the president at arm’s length in the final days of the race. Biden has been reported to have offered to stump for Harris but has been snubbed by her team as she seeks to reassure voters that she would chart a different course from her boss.
One source told the Axios news website this week: “He’s a reminder of the last four years, not the new way forward.”
Trump supporters at Madison Square Garden in New York
SINDI PILAR/SOPA IMAGES/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
Racist and sexist remarks by speakers at Trump’s New York rally have also been condemned by Nikki Haley, the closest challenger to Trump in the Republican primary race this year.
The former South Carolina governor, whose traditional brand of conservatism drew support from moderate Republicans during the primary, said that Trump and his allies “need to change the way they talk about women”.
“This bromance and this masculinity stuff, it borders on edgy to the point that it’s going to make women uncomfortable,” Haley told Fox News.
“You have got [pro-Trump campaigners] that are doing commercials about calling Kamala the c-word,” Haley said, referring to a swiftly deleted attack ad from a group funded by Elon Musk, the Tesla billionaire. “That is not the way to win women.”
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Haley appeared at the Republican convention in July to endorse Trump but has not been invited to campaign with the former president and revealed that the two have not spoken since June. Harris has stepped up her pitch to win over Haley’s supporters among moderate Republican and independent voters, particularly women.
“They [the Trump team] are very aware that we are on standby,” Haley said. “They know that we would be there to help. It is their campaign’s decision on what he needs in these last final days.”
