Top House Republicans seeking documents regarding Biden’s ‘garbage’ comment

By The Associated Press

President Joe Biden speaks to union laborers about his administration's support for unions in Philadelphia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Manuel Balce Ceneta]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top House Republicans called on the White House to produce all documents and internal communications regarding President Joe Biden’s statement earlier this week in which he appeared to take a swipe at supporters of Donald Trump.

White House press officials altered the official transcript of Biden’s statement, drawing objections from the federal workers who document such remarks for posterity, according to two U.S. government officials and an internal email obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

The lawmakers said they question whether the decision to create “a false transcript and manipulate or alter the accurate transcript” produced for the National Archives and Records Administration was a violation of federal law.

Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, and House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik demanded the White House produce the records. They’re also calling for the White House to make available for a briefing the top supervisor of the White House Stenography’s Office.

“The White House cannot simply rewrite President Biden’s rhetoric,” Comer and Stefanik wrote. “…We are concerned with the latest reporting of the White House’s apparent political decision to protect the Biden-Harris Administration, instead of following longstanding and proper protocols.”

Biden created an uproar earlier this week with his remarks to Latino activists responding to racist comments at a Trump rally made by the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

Biden, according to a transcript prepared by the official White House stenographers, told the Latino group on a Tuesday evening video call, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

The transcript released by the White House press office, however, rendered the quote with an apostrophe, reading “supporter’s” rather than “supporters,” which aides said pointed to Biden criticizing Hinchcliffe, not the millions of Americans who are supporting Trump for president.