White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denied that President Joe Biden views Donald Trump’s supporters as garbage, contradicting Biden’s remarks that sent Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign into damage control.
The departing president in a Zoom call with the organization Voto Latino Tuesday night said, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” referencing Trump. Video of Biden’s remarks quickly went viral.
Jean-Pierre Wednesday insisted, despite video evidence to the contrary, that Biden was not calling Trump supporters garbage. She referred reports to a statement on Biden’s X issued late Tuesday night in which he “clarified what he meant and what he was trying to say.”
That X statement insists Biden did not reference Trump’s supporters but comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who made a joke during a Trump rally that the Harris campaign has latched onto.
That clarification does not match Biden’s recorded remarks.
Jean-Pierre dodged when asked if Biden wishes he would have been more precise with his wording, or if he was concerned about the damage he caused to Harris’s campaign.
“He understood that what he may have said was being – he understood that what he was saying was being taken out of context,” Jean-Pierre said.
Despite Biden’s Tuesday comments, KJP attempted to turn the tables by portraying Biden as a champion against hateful rhetoric.
“He has said multiple times that he is a president for all,” she added. “It doesn’t matter if you live in a red state. It doesn’t matter if you live in a blue state.”
She added, “But hateful rhetoric, hateful rhetoric that he hears – and this is something that we’ve done many times from here – we will call that out. We will call that out, and that’s what the President said.”
Jean-Pierre illustrated Biden’s supposed magnanimity by touting Biden’s announcement in Baltimore Tuesday of $3 billion in Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds.
“That $3 billion project is going to help 27 states,” Jean-Pierre said. “Eleven of those states have Republican governors. This is what this President cares about, making sure that people who are in need get the assistance that they need, right?”
But those $3 billion in funds for “assistance that they need” will go to “boost climate-friendly equipment and infrastructure,” according to the Associated Press.
“This is about environmental justice,’’ Biden said during his Tuesday remarks in Baltimore when touting the projects.
In September of 2024, Biden himself called the IRA “the most significant climate change law ever.”
“We should have named it what it was,” Biden added then, appearing to go off script to acknowledge the bill’s deceptive name.
Jean-Pierre did not address that while eleven of the 27 states have Republican governors, 16 of the 27 states have Democrat governors – five more Democrats than Republicans. Also unaddressed was the interconnectedness of the nation’s river and port systems regardless of political boundaries.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
