A GOP lawmaker from Tennessee says he will introduce a House resolution condemning the president’s recent comment in which he appeared to to compare those backing former President Trump to garbage.
The non-binding resolution is being offered by Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.) and was first reported by Fox News.
“Whereas, on October 29, 2024, President Biden stated, ‘The only garbage I see floating around there is his supporters’, referring to supporters of President Trump: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That House of Representatives condemns President Biden’s remarks referring to President Trump’s supporters as ‘garbage’,” a copy of the resolution states.
The White House has disputed that Biden was calling Trump supporters garbage. It says Biden was describing as garbage the remarks at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who joked that Puerto Rico is “a floating island of garbage.”
The White House has circulated a transcript of Biden’s remarks during a call with Voto Latino, a major advocacy group targeting Latino voters.
It reads: “I don’t— I— I don’t know the Puerto Rican that— that I know— or a Puerto Rico, where I’m from, in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s— his— his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”
In a video of Biden’s comments, however, he takes a pause after stating the word supporters, so that the remarks sound more like this: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”
Biden, who has a history of verbal gaffes, later clarified in a Tuesday post on the social platform X that he had “referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it.”
“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable,” Biden continued in the post. “That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.”
Republians have argued the Biden remarks are similar to when 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton described Trump supporters as “deplorables.”
“First Democrats called half the country deplorables, now they are doubling down calling us garbage,” Rose said in a statement. “Democrats’ disrespect for half the country’s views and opinions is exactly what is wrong with the leadership of extreme far-left liberals.”
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
