The White House press office engaged in a “breach of protocol” when it altered the transcript of President Biden’s “garbage” remark about Donald Trump’s supporters Tuesday over the objection of the administration’s stenographers’ office, according to an internal email.
Stenographers heard the 81-year-old president tell a Latino group — in response to a comedian’s comments about Puerto Rico being “a floating island of garbage” during Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday — that “the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The White House press office, however, added an apostrophe to “supporter’s,” suggesting that Biden was only attacking the comedian.
“If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,” the supervisor of the White House stenographers fumed in an email to the press office, obtained by the Associated Press.
“Our Stenography Office transcript — released to our distro, which includes the National Archives — is now different than the version edited and released to the public by Press Office staff,” the missive continued.
The supervisor further declared that the way the situation was handled amounted to “a breach of protocol and spoilation of transcript integrity between the Stenography and Press Offices.”
White House stenographers are widely considered by reporters who cover the executive branch to be very professional and accurate with their transcriptions. It is highly unusual for the press office to dispute what the stenographers heard.
The AP reports that the press office demanded a quick transcript from the two-person stenography team covering Biden Tuesday night after his remarks set off a firestorm of controversy.
The press office “conferred with the president” after the campaign call, according to the email, and wanted to add the apostrophe to the transcript — an alteration that usually requires the approval of the stenography supervisor.
When the higher-up was not immediately available to review the proposed change, Biden’s press team forged ahead — widely releasing the improperly altered transcript on social media and the White House website.
“Regardless of urgency, it is essential to our transcripts’ authenticity and legitimacy that we adhere to consistent protocol for requesting edits, approval, and release,” the supervisor, a career White House employee, told White House communications officials, including press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
“The President confirmed in his tweet on Tuesday evening that he was addressing the hateful rhetoric from the comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. That was reflected in the transcript,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates told The Post.
House Republicans are considering launching an investigation into the “false transcript” released by the White House.
Biden’s comment was seized on by Trump and his backers this week, with the former president showing up at a Wisconsin rally with a garbage truck and a garbageman’s vest in response to the president’s criticism of his supporters.
“Kamala [Harris] and Joe [Biden] call us garbage. I call you the heart and soul of America,” Trump said at the lively rally in Green Bay, Wis.
Additional reporting by Steven Nelson
