Harris Distances Herself from Biden’s “Garbage” Remark

Harris told reporters Wednesday that Biden had “clarified” his remarks, which he made during a campaign call Tuesday night with Latino advocacy group Voto Latino. She said she spoke with him shortly afterward, but his statements “didn’t come up” in their conversation.

But she made sure to draw a line between his comments, and her stance.

“I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris said Wednesday at Joint Base Andrews before another day on the campaign trail. “As you heard in my speech last night and continuously throughout my career, I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not.”

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“And as president of the United States, I will be a president for all Americans, whether you vote for me or not. That is my responsibility, and that’s the kind of work that I’ve done my entire career, and I take it very seriously,” she continued.

The uproar happened after Biden didn’t attend Harris’s large Washington, D.C., rally, which was outside of the White House, to make a pitch to independent, undecided, and Republican voters that Trump is too dangerous for a second term in office. Instead, Biden was on a video call condemning a comedian who joked that Puerto Rico is a “floating island of garbage” at Trump‘s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday.

Biden said the people of Puerto Rico are “good, decent, honorable people,” and “the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

The White House and Biden immediately issued comments clarifying the remarks, contending they were regarding the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and not Trump supporters writ large. As part of its defense, the White House shared the official transcript of Biden’s statement, underscoring the significance of an apostrophe, listing it as “his supporter’s,” referring to Hinchliffe in the singular.

Biden said on social media he was alluding to Hinchcliffe, and the comedian’s quip at the rally does not “reflect who we are as a nation.” Regardless, the episode turned attention away from a Trump backer’s insult to Puerto Rico and put the Harris campaign on defense a day after she planned to be riding high from her Ellipse speech.

Harris downplayed the possibility that Biden’s comments countered her message of unity and bipartisanship that she underscored during her closing argument address at the Ellipse, the national park south of the White House.

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“I respect the challenges that people face,” she said. “I respect the fact that we all have so much more in common than what separates us, and that most people want a president that understands that, that gets that, and approaches their role of leadership that way. I’ve been very clear from my earliest years as a prosecutor, I never asked anyone, are they a Democrat or Republican? The only thing I ask folks is, are you okay? And that’s the kind of president I will be.”

Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), also tried to clean up Biden’s remarks Wednesday, repeating Harris’s own statement during an interview with ABC‘s Good Morning America and CBS Mornings.

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“The president has clarified his remarks,” Walz told ABC. “Let’s be very clear, 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.”

Republicans quickly seized on Biden’s comments, reminiscent of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton calling half of Trump’s supporters “a basket of deplorable.” Puerto Rican voters are a critical voting bloc in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes could decide next week’s election.