Even the Media Can’t Ignore This: Stenographer Calls Out White House After What It Did to ‘Garbage’ Comment

It turns out that, by doing transcript surgery on President Joe Biden’s now-infamous “garbage” remarks about Donald Trump’s supporters (or “supporter’s,” depending on who you believe), the White House may have made things exponentially worse for themselves.

According to an email obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, a supervisor with the White House stenographers office is making an issue of the press office’s alteration of the transcript of the president’s Zoom remarks to a Latino voters group Tuesday. The alterations were meant to help spin a comment which sounded like it was referring to Trump voters as “garbage” into a comment that was directed to roast comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who told a joke about Puerto Rico being a “floating island of garbage” at the former president’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday.

This, in case you’ve forgotten — and if you have, let me tell you, you’re Kamala Harris’ kind of voter — is the viral moment:

No, you called us garbage. It’s on tape. pic.twitter.com/bxb4UDnteN

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 30, 2024

Here’s how the White House stenographers had it down: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

However, the White House press office instead put an apostrophe in there to try to make this about Hinchcliffe: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”

Never mind that this didn’t make sense. Biden himself — or at least whatever semi-coherent person runs his social media accounts — tried to spin it this way, too.

“Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation,” Biden said in an X post.

Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The…

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 30, 2024

Whether or not you buy this has nothing to do with the propriety of it, which — spoiler alert — is highly questionable.

In the email, the supervisor said that the press office had committed “a breach of protocol and spoliation of transcript integrity between the Stenography and Press Offices.”

“If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,” the supervisor added.

“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 … 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 press office, meanwhile, says it made the changes after it “conferred with the president.” Which sounds like nonsense, especially since the president would probably just like some oatmeal and “Matlock” reruns. However, it’s clear that this was highly abnormal and done to get out in front of a last-minute “basket of deplorables” moment.

“The two-person stenography team on duty that evening — a ‘typer’ and ‘proofer’ — said any edit to the transcript would have to be approved by their supervisor, the head of stenographers’ office,” the AP reported.

“The supervisor was not immediately available to review the audio, but the press office went ahead and published the altered transcript on the White House website and distributed it to press and on social media in an effort to tamp down the story.”

Which arguably made things worse.

Not only did the “garbage” remarks overshadow the remarks being made by Vice President Harris in her closing arguments, given just a stone’s throw away from the White House, where Biden was sabotaging whatever she said, they’re now overshadowing yet another news cycle. Not only that, congressional Republicans are demanding an investigation, meaning this likely won’t go to pasture before Election Day.

“White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the United States to be more politically on message,” wrote House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York and House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer of Kentucky in a letter to White House counsel Ed Siskel on Wednesday. The letter also accused the White House of “releasing a false transcript” to the public — something which could violate Presidential Records Act of 1978.

It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving group of individuals, I’ll just say that much.

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