Despite stenographer concerns, White House altered Biden's ‘garbage’ remarks

By 
 November 1, 2024

The final days of the presidential election have turned dirty, possibly literally, as President Joe Biden stumps for his vice president, Kamala Harris, by attempting to insult voters nationwide.

To make matters worse, the president appears to have attempted to cover up the egregious miscarriage of diplomacy by altering the official record, as Just The News reported.

White House press staff allegedly changed the official transcript of a call in which Joe Biden seemed to attack Trump supporters, according to two US government officials and an internal email that The Associated Press received on Thursday.

Meanwhile, federal employees who record such comments for history voiced their disapproval of the call.

The Comments

The comments made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a Trump rally, in which he called the US territory of Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage," sparked a heated exchange between  Biden and Latino activists earlier this week.

Biden responded, saying, "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American," allegedly offering his opinion to the Latino organization during a Tuesday evening video chat.

A transcript prepared by the White House's official stenographers serves as confirmation of this assertion.

The phrase, however, was altered and translated with an apostrophe and read "supporter's" rather than "supporters" in a version of the transcript sent out by the White House press.

The Fallout

As a result, Biden was apparently going after Hinchcliffe instead of the millions of Trump supporters, according to his advisors.

A staff email from the chief of the stenographers' office, which The AP received, states that the adjustment was made after press officials "conferred with the president."

Two government insiders, who wished to remain anonymous in order to discuss internal issues, verified the email's accuracy.

From a White House Insider

In the email, the supervisor criticized the press office's actions, describing them as "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 transcript was edited in response to a flurry of inquiries from reporters regarding Biden's remarks, as the White House was compelled to provide a response.

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