White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre got into a heated exchange Wednesday as she denied that President Joe Biden called people supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump “garbage.”
Biden appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage” during a Zoom call Tuesday in response to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at a Sunday rally. The press secretary sparred with The Associated Press reporter Aamer Madhani as she denied that the president referred to Trump supporters, claiming he only referred to Hinchcliffe’s joke and “hateful rhetoric.”
“Just to clarify, he was not calling Trump supporters garbage which is why he put out, this is why he wanted to make sure that we put out a statement that clarified what he meant and what he was trying to say … He was regarding to the comedian, and I quote ‘I refer to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage, which is the only word I can think of to describe it,’” Jean-Pierre said. “‘His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, that’s all I meant to say. The comments do not reflect who we are as a nation.’ To your other question that you asked, no, he does not view Trump supporters or anybody who supports Trump as garbage. That is not what he views.”
The press secretary said Biden will not tolerate and will call out “hateful rhetoric.” Madhani then pressed Jean-Pierre over whether the president regrets not speaking more clearly and for saying it while Vice President Kamala Harris gave her closing argument to the nation at the National Mall Tuesday night.
“Does he have any regret for not being more, his language was not specific. If you were listening to that video … if you were any sort of normal person listening to that video or looking at the clips online, you can come to the conclusion that he was calling, at minimum this one man garbage, or if not, all Trump supporters garbage. Does he regret not being more precise with his language? … Does he have any regret for how this shadowed Vice President Harris’ campaign?” Madhani asked.
“So a couple of things there, there’s a lot that you laid out. Look, the president wanted to clarify because he understood that what he was saying was being taken out of context,” the press secretary continued. “So he wanted to be very clear about what he was trying to say. And I just read that out once over, you all have the tweet or the statement that’s on X … and he was talking about hateful rhetoric, and we’ve called out hateful rhetoric from here. We have. Obviously, this hateful rhetoric was about a particular community, the Puerto Rican community, they are Americans, this is a community that he respects and he wanted to make sure that he called that out.”
Biden made the remark as Harris called Trump an “unhinged” and “unstable” leader who will govern as a “fascist” if reelected on Nov. 5. The Democrats have accused Trump of being a want-to-be dictator who is comparable to former Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, even equating the former president’s rally at Madison Square Garden to a Nazi rally that took place at the same stadium in 1939.
Jean-Pierre said the White House views Trump as a “fascist” during an Oct. 23 briefing in response to John Kelly, Trump’s former chief-of-staff, alleging that the former president “met the definition of a fascist.”
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton notably said in 2016 that half of Trump supporters come from a “basket of deplorables,” accusing them of being “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic [and] Islamophobic.”
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