Politico faced intense backlash on Tuesday for seemingly trying to downplay a quote of President Biden calling Trump supporters “garbage” in a campaign call.
Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance tore into Politico on Tuesday, accusing the outlet of “covering” for President Biden by attempting to sugarcoat his comment disparaging Trump supporters as “garbage.”
During a virtual Harris campaign call with Voto Latino, Biden took a swipe at former President Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden, which made headlines after insult comedian Tony Hinchiffe made jokes mocking different ethnic groups, with one joke referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden said on the call. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it is un-American.”
Politico White House bureau chief Jonathan Lemire seemingly applied his own interpretation of what he believed Biden intended to say in his reporting of the remark.
“Biden, in a Zoom call with the organization Vote Latino, said ‘the only garbage’ was the ‘hatred’ of Trump supporters who said such things about American citizens,'” Lemire wrote.
The backlash was swift and fierce. Critics immediately pounced on the outlet for publishing the watered-down quote, with Vance questioning Lemire’s journalistic integrity amounting to what he described as a “scandal.”
“Do @JonLemire @alexanderburns @politico have an ounce of integrity? Will they correct this obvious falsehood?” he wrote on X.
Vance then posted the clip of Biden’s comments, adding, “Here’s the actual video. The fact that these ‘journalists’ are covering for a catastrophic error from Kamala’s campaign is a scandal.”
Donald Trump Jr. also reprimanded the outlet on X.
“This wasn’t some accident from @politico. Leftist hack @JonLemire tried to do clean up for Team Kamala and lied about what was said to protect her. He didn’t realize that video was going to come out that would expose him as a liar and Dem propagandist!!!” he posted.
TRUMP DENIES KNOWING COMEDIAN WHO MADE PUERTO RICO JOKE AT MSG RALLY
Lemire posted the White House’s transcript on X, arguing that Biden was “being taken out of context,” then used their punctuation in his followup report.
The official White House transcript added an apostrophe to indicate Biden was only speaking about one supporter, not all: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
But even CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins didn’t buy that spin.
“It’s hard to really look at that when you can listen to it for yourself,” Collins added.
As the White House tried to do damage control from within, Biden took to social media to clarify his comment.
“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,” he wrote. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.”
A White House spokesperson had previously told Fox News, “The President referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage.’” The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Trump himself reacted to the “terrible” comment while speaking at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
“Remember Hillary? She said ‘deplorable’ and then said ‘irredeemable,’ right? But she said ‘deplorable.’ That didn’t work out. ‘Garbage’ I think is worse,” Trump said to his supporters. “But he doesn’t know- you have to please forgive him. Please forgive him. For he not knoweth what he said.”
“And I’m convinced he likes me more than he likes Kamala,” Trump quipped.
Politico did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
