“The only garbage I see floating out there are his supporters.”
That was President Joe Biden on Oct. 29 on a VotoLatino.org Zoom call on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, appearing to refer to supporters of former President Donald Trump as “garbage” in response to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” prompted audible boos and jeers from the crowd of Trump’s supporters, at Trump’s Oct. 27 Madison Square Garden rally in New York City on Oct. 27.
The joke fell flat, and after the audience of Trump supporters booed, he responded to the jeers, stating, “Okay, all right, okay, we’re getting there. Again, normally I don’t follow the national anthem, everybody. This isn’t exactly a perfect comedy setup.”
The audience booed. And for their trouble, the President of the United States called them “garbage”.
Here was the full quote from Biden, with the NBC News headline reading in part “Biden takes shot at Trump supporters…”: “Donald Trump has no character. He doesn’t give a damn about the Latino community. He’s a failed businessman. He only cares about the billionaire friends he has… [and] wealth for those at the top. You know, he says immigrants have poisoned the blood of our country. Give me a break. He wants to do away with the birthright citizenship. Who the hell has said that in the last hundred years? And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. Well, let me tell you something… I don’t know the Puerto Rican that I know — or the Puerto Rico in my home state of Delaware — they’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there are his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done…”
The context is quite clear: “Donald Trump has no character. He doesn’t give a damn about the Latino community. He’s a failed businessman. He only cares…” is all talking about Trump.
“And, just the other day a speaker at his rally”—still talking about Trump—“called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage.” And, “The only garbage I see floating out there are his supporters”—again, still talking about Trump and his supporters.
You know, the ones who booed the comedian for his dumb joke.
After the rally, campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez issued a statement saying, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
In an attempt to clarify his remarks, Biden put a statement out on X.com on Oct. 29 stating he only meant one supporter, the comedian: “Earlier today I 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. That’s all I meant to say.”
But in his remarks, Biden was accusing Trump, not Hinchcliffe, of demonizing Latinos and immigrants. And we know that because Biden has said so of Trump repeatedly.
On March 7, at the State of the Union Address at the U.S. Capitol, Biden said, “I will not demonize immigrants saying they ‘poison the blood of our country’ as he said in his own words. I will not separate families.”
At a March 20 campaign reception Biden stated, “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t demonize immigrants.”
On Oct. 15 in Philadelphia, Biden told the Sheet Metal Workers Union, “What’s he got left? Trump’s whole came down — come down to demonizing immigrants, calling immigrants ‘animals,’ saying they don’t have ‘good genes,’ saying they poison the blood of our country.”
Biden was just repeating his standard campaign stump speech on the VotoLatino.org Zoom call. He was referring to Trump and his supporters as “garbarge” who he claims were “demonizing” Latinos. This is standard rhetoric from the President against his political opponents who wants to lecture the country about “character.”
In the meantime, Biden falsely demonizes Trump and his supporters all the time, as extremists, Nazis and fascists.
Speaking in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pa. on Sept. 1, 2022, where the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4,1776 and the Constitution was debated and written in May through Sept. 1787, Biden called Trump and his supporters a threat to the republic, stating, “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
Biden added, “the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.”
In a Aug. 25, 2022 speech in Bethesda, Md., Biden called Trump and his supporters fascists: “what we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It’s not just — it’s not just Trump. It’s the –it’s the entire philosophy that underpins — it’s — I’m going say something — it’s almost like semi-fascism, the way in which it deals.”
On Aug. 31, 2022, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre further expounded on the then-upcoming speech by Biden in Philadelphia, calling Trump supporters “an extreme threat to democracy,” stating, “The president thinks that there is an extremist threat to our democracy… When we talk about our democracy, when we talk about our freedoms, the way that he sees it is the MAGA Republicans are the most energized part of the Republican Party. This is an extreme threat to our democracy, to our freedom, to our rights.”
Speaking to the United Steelworkers on April 17, 2024, while still running for re-election prior to dropping out of the race Biden said the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. that led to a riot was what prompted him to run for president in 2020, stating, “And when those folks came walking out of those fields — down in Charlottesville, Virginia — carrying Nazi banners, singing the same garbage that they sang in Hitler’s streets in Germany in the ‘30s, carrying torches, accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan, and a young woman was killed, I decided that I had to run. I had to run.”
Run against who? The Nazis. Trump. They’re the same to Biden, who added, carrying forward his “soul of America” theme from his Independence Hall speech: “Our democracy is at stake, and it really is.”
At a campaign fundraiser on May 21, 2024, Biden directly compared Trump to Adolf Hitler, stating, “He says immigrants are, quote, ‘poisoning the blood’ of America. That’s the language of Hitler’s Germany, not an American president.” Never mind that Trump has always criticized illegal immigration and always praised legal immigration, Biden thinks Trump is Hitler.
And so does Trump’s opponent, Kamala Harris, who in a post on X on Oct. 23, Harris stated, “Donald Trump vowed to be a dictator on day one. He vowed to use the military to carry out personal and political vendettas. His former chief of staff [John Kelly] said he wanted generals like Hitler’s. Trump wants unchecked power…”
The X post by Harris linked to a video of Harris speaking in front of the White House the same day, wherein she stated, “It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans… This is a window into who Donald Trump really is.”
Later, at a CNN town hall on Oct. 23, Harris doubled down on the allegation saying Trump would be “a president who admires dictators and is a fascist.”
Harris even associated Trump — whose son-in-law, daughter and grandchildren are all Jewish, and who has been a staunch supporter of Israel, even moving the U.S. embassy there to Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem, and was the first U.S. President to recognize Jerusalem is in fact Israel’s capital, and instituted the historic Abraham Accords between Israel and her Arab neighbors to ensure the Jewish state’s survival — with the Holocaust, the systematic elimination and murder of 6 million Jews and 5 million Slavs, Gypsies and others during World War II.
The Harris campaign has even compared the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, where Jewish New Yorker Trump supporters were waving Israeli flags, to Nazis. That’s what is truly thought of Trump and his supporters. It’s utterly insane.
Trump for his part, also issued an X.com statement on Oct. 30, stating, “While I am running a campaign of positive solutions to save America, Kamala Harris is running a campaign of hate. She has spent all week comparing her political opponents to the most evil mass murderers in history. Now, on top of everything, Joe Biden calls our supporters ‘garbage.’ You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American People. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have shown they are both unfit to be President of the United States. I am proud to lead the biggest, broadest, and most important political coalition in American history. We are welcoming historic numbers of Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed. It is my desire to be the President of all the people.”
In fact, Trump has openly courted Hispanic support throughout the election even, touting rising poll numbers, while running against illegal immigration, violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants that impacts Hispanic communities the most and the chaotic southern border that the Biden-Harris administration has allowed millions to cross without restoring order.
Appearing at a Univision townhall on Oct. 27 broadcast to Latinos, Trump outlined his border and immigration policies, stating, “We have to have a lot of people come into our country. We just want them to come in legally through a system, because they’ve released hundreds of thousands of people that are murderers, drug dealers, terrorists. They’re coming in totally … Nobody knows who they are, where they come from, and the people that are most against it are the Hispanic people. They are totally against it, what’s happened. The other thing I can say is that a lot of the jobs that you have and that other people have are being taken by these people that are coming in, and the African American population and the Hispanic population in particular are losing jobs now because millions of people are coming in. So they’re coming in, but they’re also coming in largely, and tremendous numbers coming in out of mental institutions. They’re emptying out mental institutions. They’re emptying out insane asylums. That’s a step above a mental institution. Worse, bigger, bigger problems, bigger problem people. They’re emptying out jails. The jails are being led into our country from Venezuela. But not just South America, from all over the world they’re being led in, from jails, from … Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. The jail population throughout the world has come way down, and it’s all coming into the United States of America. So we want workers and we want them to come in, but they have to come in legally. They have to love our country. They have to love you, love our people.”
Trump added, “You like strong borders. So do I. And we had them. We had the strongest border we’ve ever had in the history, recorded history of our country. Four years ago, we had a border that was great. And again, people were coming in, but they were coming in through a legal process. They were great people coming into our country… As far as the border, we want to have a strong border, and we want people to come in. And that’s what we had. Remember, we had the strongest border in history.”
And he touted support among Hispanics, stating, “we’re leading in the polls now. We have an election going on right now. I’m doing really well with Hispanics and we’re doing well pretty much with every group.”
On Trump’s poll numbers, that’s objectively true. For example, in the final New York Times-Siena poll taken in the election Oct. 20 to Oct. 23 that showed Trump leading Harris in the race 47 percent to 46 percent, Trump registered 42 percent among Hispanics, by far the best any Republican candidate has ever done in a presidential race. Usually, Democrats win Hispanics and Latinos two-to-one. Trump has definitely made in-roads.
One of the reasons might how Trump’s economic policies had benefited Hispanics and for that matter all Americans when he was in office, with Trump stating at the Univision townhall, “Our country was coming together and the thing that will bring our country together is success. It was coming together because it was so successful. Hispanic Americans, Black Americans, everybody had jobs, women, men, people with high school diplomas, people without high school diplomas, people from the best colleges in the world, from MIT, and Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance, from Stanford, and people with no education, everybody was doing better than they’d ever done, everybody, every group, every group. And who was doing the best? Proportionately, were low-income people, and that’s a statistical fact. Everybody was doing better. There was no division. Success will bring our country together.”
In short, Trump has been campaigning towards Hispanics and Latinos the entire campaign, not demonizing them. He wants their votes. But Biden really does think Trump and his supporters are Nazis, fascists and garbage — because he told them loud and clear. That’s the real garbage rhetoric, and on Tuesday, Nov. 5, maybe the American people fed up with it will finally take out the trash.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
