America votes: US election campaign farce: The garbage controversy – and an apostrophe

The word “garbage” has played an unusually large role in the US presidential election campaign for days. The controversy surrounding the US territory of Puerto Rico is spreading more and more and is also putting the White House in need of explanation. According to US media, the government headquarters is said to have tampered with an official transcript in order to cover up a mistake made by Democratic President Joe Biden in the debate. Stumbling block is an apostrophe. But back to the beginning:

It all started with a tasteless joke at a major campaign event for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump last Sunday. A comedian there described Puerto Rico as an island made of garbage floating in the ocean. The statement sparked widespread outrage in Puerto Rico. This could be a problem for Trump, because around 500,000 Puerto Ricans live in the hotly contested and potentially decisive election state of Pennsylvania alone.

First, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ team used the scandal for election campaign purposes against Trump. But then President Joe Biden intervened and played into Trump’s hands with a faux pas. Biden addressed the garbage scandal in a campaign phone call with the Latino community on Tuesday. The Democrat spoke positively of Puerto Ricans and criticized Trump. However, one of his sentences in a video published online by the Schalte can also be understood as follows: “The only rubbish I see floating around is his followers.”

Trump has been exploiting this mercilessly ever since, allowing himself to be filmed in a garbage truck, appearing at a rally in a garbage man’s orange and yellow vest, and telling his supporters at every opportunity that Biden showed what he and his Vice President Harris thought of them.

However, it is not clear from the recording of Biden’s unfortunate phone call whether he actually called Trump’s supporters “trash” – or the widespread views about Latinos. In the official White House transcript, in which Biden stutters profusely at this point, as he often does, it was presented as if the latter was true.

The difference in the English original is a plain apostrophe next to the word “supporter”. Biden and the White House have been at pains in recent days to emphasize that the president had spoken an apostrophe and meant only the hateful rhetoric of one Trump supporter at the campaign rally on Sunday – that is, the views of one comedian and not those of millions upon millions of Americans. Citizens who support Trump.

However, Trump’s catchy garbage man imagery easily overshadows such in-depth textual analysis. In addition, Fox News, among others, now reported, citing internal emails from the White House, that government headquarters had changed the transcript of Biden’s controversial remark despite the concerns of the official stenographers. In an email, a supervisor in the stenography department raised the alarm and complained about a violation of regulations by the press office.

Harris, who is already very distant from Biden during the election campaign, has already tried to distance herself from his remark. The 60-year-old said she was against criticizing people for who they voted for. She wants to be president for all Americans – even for those who don’t vote for her. Biden also clarified his statements.