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Six days from the White House election, the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has been attempting to move past an uproar sparked by President Joe Biden appearing to refer to Trump supporters as “garbage”.
The vice-president told reporters when asked about Tuesday’s remark by her boss that she would “strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for”.
As his comment drew backlash, Biden posted on X, formerly Twitter, that it was directed at a comic who made a controversial joke at a Donald Trump rally, not tens of millions of Americans.
Trump, the Republican candidate, seized on the furore by getting into a garbage truck as he campaigned in Wisconsin, saying: “Biden should be ashamed of himself.”
During a fundraising Zoom call with a Latino voters’ group on Tuesday evening, Biden was initially quoted as saying: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his [Trump’s] supporters.”
The White House released a transcript saying that the president was only referring to one supporter – a stand-up comedian who called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” during a routine at a Trump rally in New York City on Sunday.
Asked about Biden’s remarks before flying from near Washington DC to campaign in swing states, Harris noted that Biden had already sought to “clarify his comments”.
“But let me be clear,” she added. “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”
In response to a question from the BBC, she said that if she won next Tuesday’s election she would be “a president for all Americans, including those that don’t vote for me”.
Harris sought to turn focus back to her rival, Trump, saying that US voters were deciding whether they want to “attempt to unify and break through this era of divisiveness”.
The controversy over Biden’s remarks made headlines in an unwelcome distraction for the Harris campaign as she delivered her final pitch to voters in Washington DC.
At the spot from which Trump spoke shortly before a riot by his supporters at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, she urged Americans on Tuesday night to “turn the page on the drama and the conflict” in US politics.
Back at the White House aides were still trying to draw a line under the “garbage” controversy on Wednesday.
At the daily news conference, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters: “He [Biden] does not view Trump supporters or anybody who supports Trump, as garbage. That is not what he views.”
Trump’s backers have seized upon Biden’s comments, making comparisons with a controversial remark by Hillary Clinton in 2016 during Trump’s first run for office, when she said half of Trump’s supporters were “deplorables”.
At his rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump said Biden’s words are “worse” than what Clinton said.
He told the crowd: “Joe Biden finally said what he and Kamala really think of our supporters. He called them ‘garbage.’ And they mean it.”
Later he flew to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he got into a bin lorry with a Trump campaign sticker on the side.
“How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump asked reporters.
Waiting in line for the rally in Green Bay was Anne Driessen, who was carrying a black bin bag in reference to Biden’s comment.
She told the BBC: “We’re accustomed to this from the other side. He’s [Trump has] been called Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini – why don’t they just call him Satan?
“They lump us all together too.”
Another woman in the queue for the Trump rally – she gave her name as Ash – told the BBC: “It’s not OK to use words like garbage.
“We’re not all the same, and a lot of us are politically moderate. But I feel like more of the insults are coming from that [other side].”
During his campaign, Trump has himself been criticised for calling the United States a “garbage can for the world” and describing political opponents as “the enemy within”.
While Trump has acknowledged that “somebody said some bad things” at his New York City rally on Sunday, he also said he did not think the comedian’s gag was “a big deal”.
He said the Madison Square Garden event was a “lovefest”.
In Philadelphia, in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, members of the 90,000-strong Puerto Rican population told the BBC they would not forget the joke.
Residents of Puerto Rico – a US island territory in the Caribbean – are unable to vote in presidential elections, but the large diaspora in the US can.
