It was supposed to be Kamala Harris’s big night. On October 29, 2024, the Vice President was standing at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., giving her "closing argument" to the nation. She was talking about unity, turning the page, and bringing people together.
Then Joe Biden hopped on a Zoom call.
In a matter of seconds, the headlines shifted from Harris’s speech to a single sentence that sent the 2024 election into a tailspin. People started screaming that Biden calls Trump supporters garbage, and suddenly, the "unity" message was fighting for its life.
The Quote That Set the Internet on Fire
Basically, Biden was on a video call with Voto Latino, a nonprofit group. He was reacting to a joke made a few days earlier at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. If you remember, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe had called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage."
It was a bad joke that already had the Trump campaign on the defensive. Biden, trying to defend Puerto Ricans, said:
"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American."
Now, honestly, if you watch the video, he’s a bit garbled. He stumbles. But to the naked ear, it sounded like he was calling tens of millions of Americans "garbage."
The GOP jumped on it instantly. Senator Marco Rubio actually broke the news to Trump while he was on stage at a rally in Pennsylvania. You can imagine the reaction. Trump compared it to Hillary Clinton’s "basket of deplorables" moment from 2016, and the narrative was set.
The Battle of the Apostrophe
This is where things get kinda weird and technical. The White House realized they had a massive problem on their hands. Almost immediately, they pushed out a transcript that tried to fix the damage with a single piece of punctuation.
They claimed Biden didn't say "supporters" (plural). They argued he said "supporter’s" (possessive).
The idea was that he was talking specifically about the comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe. He was calling the supporter's rhetoric garbage, not the people. White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates was all over X (formerly Twitter) trying to sell this version of the story.
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But the official White House stenographers weren't happy. The Associated Press later reported that the press office actually altered the official record despite objections from the stenography team. The head of the stenographers' office called it a "breach of protocol."
How the Candidates Handled the Mess
Kamala Harris was essentially blindsided. She had to walk a very thin line. She couldn't exactly throw the sitting President under the bus, but she couldn't agree with the comment either. The next morning, she told reporters on the tarmac that she "strongly disagrees with any criticism of people based on who they vote for."
Trump, being Trump, didn't just talk about it—he turned it into a prop.
The very next day, he touched down in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and hopped into a high-vis safety vest. He climbed into a white garbage truck with his name on the side. "How do you like my garbage truck?" he asked. "This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden."
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It was a classic Trump move. He took an insult and turned it into a uniform for his base.
Why This Moment Actually Mattered
Look, gaffes happen in every campaign. But this one was different because of the timing. It happened one week before Election Day.
- It neutralized the MSG controversy: Before Biden’s comment, the news was all about the "garbage" joke at Trump's rally. Biden effectively took the heat off Trump and put it on himself.
- It energized the GOP base: Nothing gets voters to the polls like feeling insulted by the people in power.
- It created a "Deplorables 2.0" vibe: For many, this confirmed their belief that the Democratic establishment looked down on them.
Sorting Fact from Fiction
Let's be clear about what we know and what we don't.
Biden did say the word "garbage." He was definitely talking about the rhetoric used at the Trump rally. Whether he meant to hit the supporters or just the comedian is something only Joe knows, but the White House stenographers recorded it as the plural "supporters."
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Republicans like Elise Stefanik and James Comer even threatened investigations, claiming the transcript edit violated the Presidential Records Act of 1978. It became a fight about much more than just a slip of the tongue; it became a fight about the integrity of government records.
What You Can Do Now
If you're trying to make sense of how political rhetoric impacts elections, here’s how to look at it objectively:
- Check the source material: Always watch the raw video of a gaffe before reading the transcript or the commentary. Inflection and stumbles matter.
- Compare the transcripts: Look at the version released by the White House Press Office versus the reports from the independent stenography office.
- Monitor the fallout: Notice how candidates use "outgroup" insults to build "ingroup" loyalty. It’s a standard play in the modern political handbook.
Political language is messy, and in a high-stakes election, a single "s" or an apostrophe can be the difference between a winning message and a week-long PR nightmare.