US election campaign
Did the US President call Trump supporters “trash”?
The Trump side is outraged: Joe Biden is said to have insulted Republican voters. The White House emphasizes that the president was misunderstood.
In the final spurt of the race for the White House, US President Joe Biden caused a stir among Donald Trump and his supporters with statements made during a campaign phone call. It appeared that Biden referred to Trump supporters as “trash” during the conversation. The White House said the president was simply misunderstood.
Trump and his confidants such as tech billionaire Elon Musk tried to mobilize their supporters with a scandal.
In the phone call, Biden referred to the controversy surrounding the tasteless joke at a major Trump campaign event. A comedian described the US territory of Puerto Rico as an island of garbage floating in the ocean. The statement sparked strong outrage in Puerto Rico – and could become a problem for Trump shortly before the election. Around 500,000 Puerto Ricans live in the highly competitive and potentially decisive election state of Pennsylvania alone.
Joe Biden actually criticizes Donald Trump – and not Latinos
Biden spoke positively of Puerto Ricans and criticized Trump in the phone call with the Latino community. He was then quoted online and by the Trump site as saying: “The only trash I see going on is his supporters.” According to this, the sentence went even further – and Biden did not describe the supporters themselves as garbage, but rather statements with the “demonization of Latinos”. Biden himself also announced a little later on the online platform X that he meant the rhetoric. “That’s all I wanted to say.”
Trump and his campaign jumped on it immediately. “These people. Terrible, terrible – terrible to say such a thing,” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania. The ex-president compared the statement to a comment by Democrat Hillary Clinton, who ran against Trump in 2016. Clinton said at the time that half of Trump’s supporters were “deplorables.” “Garbage is worse, I think, right?” Trump said.
His vice presidential candidate JD Vance called Biden’s words “disgusting.” Incumbent Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris “and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country,” Vance said. Elon Musk, who owns X, also wrote there that Biden called half of America “garbage.”
DPA · AFP
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Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
