AP sources: White House altered record of Biden's 'garbage' remarks despite stenographer concerns

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House press officials altered the official 
transcript of a call in which President Joe Biden appeared to take a 
swipe at supporters of Donald Trump, drawing objections from the 
federal workers who document such remarks for posterity, according to 
two U.S. government officials and an internal email obtained Thursday 
by The Associated Press.

Biden created an uproar earlier this week with his remarks to Latino 
activists responding to racist comments at a Trump rally made by the 
comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to the U.S. island territory of 
Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

Biden, according to a transcript prepared by the official White House 
stenographers, told the Latino group on a Tuesday evening video call, 
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — 
his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

The transcript released by the White House press office, however, 
rendered the quote with an apostrophe, reading “supporter’s” rather 
than “supporters,” which aides said pointed to Biden criticizing 
Hinchcliffe, not the millions of Americans who are supporting Trump for 
president.

The change was made after the press office “conferred with the 
president,” according to an internal email from the head of the 
stenographers’ office that was obtained by The AP. The authenticity of 
the email was confirmed by two government officials who spoke on 
condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.


The supervisor, in the email, called the press office’s handling of the 
matter “a breach of protocol and spoliation of transcript integrity 
between the Stenography and Press Offices.”

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

The edit of the transcript came as the White House scrambled to respond 
to a wave of queries from reporters about Biden’s comments. The 
president’s remarks clashed with Vice President Kamala Harris’ near-
simultaneous speech outside the White House in which she called for 
treating Americans of differing ideologies with respect.

The Trump campaign quickly moved to fundraise off the quote, and the 
next day, Trump himself held a photo op inside a garbage truck to try 
to capitalize on Biden’s criticism.

Harris on Wednesday distanced herself from Biden’s comments — making 
the clearest break from the president since she took over for him at 
the top of the Democratic ticket just over three months ago. “Let me be 
clear,” she told reporters, “I strongly disagree with any criticism of 
people based on who they vote for.”

According to the email, the press office had asked the stenographers to 
quickly produce a transcript of the call amid the firestorm. Biden 
himself took to social media to say that he he was not calling all 
Trump supporters garbage and that he was referring specifically to the 
“hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his 
Madison Square Garden rally.”

The stenographers office is charged with preparing accurate transcripts 
of public and private remarks of the president for preservation by the 
National Archives and distribution to the public.

The two-person stenography team on duty that evening — a “typer” and 
“proofer” — said any edit to the transcript would have to be approved 
by their supervisor, the head of stenographers’ office.

The supervisor was not immediately available to review the audio, but 
the press office went ahead and published the altered transcript on the 
White House website and distributed it to press and on social media in 
an effort to tamp down the story.

White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates that evening 
also posted on X the edited version of the quote and wrote that Biden 
was referring ”to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden 
rally as ‘garbage.’”

The supervisor, a career employee of the White House, raised the 
concerns about the press office action — but did not weigh in on the 
accuracy of the edit — in an email to White House communications 
director Ben LaBolt, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and other press 
and communications officials.

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

The supervisor declined to comment to The AP and referred questions 
about the matter to the White House press office.

Asked to comment, Bates did not address the alteration of the 
transcript and said: “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.”

Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said the White House 
“unethically altered an official White House transcript in a failed 
attempt to edit the truth.”

“Joe Biden called more than half the country ‘garbage’ and the Harris-
Biden Administration cannot be trusted,” she added. “President Trump 
will fix it.”

House Republicans, meanwhile, were debating launching an investigation 
into the matter. House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, 
R-N.Y., and House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-
Ky., on Wednesday accused White House staff of “releasing a false 
transcript” of Biden’s remarks.

In a letter to White House counsel Ed Siskel on Wednesday, they called 
on the administration to retain documents and internal communications 
related to Biden’s remarks and the release of the transcript.

“White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the 
United States to be more politically on message,” the lawmakers wrote 
to Siskel.

Stefanik and Comer said the action could be in violation of the 
Presidential Records Act of 1978.

https://apnews.com/article/biden-garbage-transcript-puerto-rico-trump-
326e2f516a94a470a423011a946b6252