Newsweek, October 2024
President Joe Biden’s remark apparently calling Donald Trump’s supporters “garbage” quickly brought a backlash, but experts told Newsweek it is unlikely to have much of an impact on the election. The president made the comment in response to a comedian who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in New York City, where some speakers made crude and racist remarks on Sunday.
Puerto Ricans are “good, decent honorable people,” Biden said on a call organized by Voto Latino, a grassroots advocacy organization, on Tuesday. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” he said in a reference to Trump, according to the White House transcript of Biden’s remarks. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
