White House issues altered transcript of Biden’s ‘garbage’ jibe

The White House press office has been accused of breaking protocol by altering an official transcript in which President Biden appeared to dismiss Donald Trump supporters as “garbage”.

On a video call with Latino voters on Tuesday, Biden, 81, sought to condemn remarks by a comedian at a Trump rally who referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating pile of garbage”.

“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 supporters,” Biden said.

It caused an unwelcome row for the Democrats days before the presidential election on Tuesday. Trump held a news conference from the cab of a refuse lorry and senior Republicans claimed the incident may have violated the Presidential Records Act.

On Thursday night the White House press office released a transcript of the exchange with Biden claiming he was only referring to the comedian and other speakers at the rally. The transcript placed a possessive apostrophe in the word “supporter’s”, ascribing the garbage to specific people rather than describing Trump’s followers en masse.

This earned the press office a rebuke from the head official at the White House stenography office, which is tasked with preparing accurate transcripts of public and private remarks of the president for preservation by the National Archives.

In an email obtained by the AP press agency, the head stenographer wrote to senior White House press officials to say their version had been changed.

“If there is a difference in interpretation, the press office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,” the supervisor wrote. “Our stenography office transcript — released to our distro [sic], which includes the National Archives — is now different than the version edited and released to the public by press office staff.”

Trump held a rally in Henderson, Nevada, on Thursday night

BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS

The official added the press office’s handling of the incident had been “a breach of protocol and spoliation of transcript integrity between the stenography and press offices”.

The email added that the change was made after the press office had “conferred with the president”.

“Regardless of urgency, it is essential to our transcripts’ authenticity and legitimacy that we adhere to consistent protocol for requesting edits, approval, and release,” it added.

Asked to comment by AP, the White House did not address the alteration of the transcript, only saying: “The president confirmed in his tweet on Tuesday evening that he was addressing the hateful rhetoric from the comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. That was reflected in the transcript.”