White House altered transcript of Biden's insult against Trump supporters, bypassing official rules

In an attempt to salvage a communications gaffe by Joe Biden, the White House bent the rules and altered the public record of the president's insult against Republican Donald Trump supporters, whom he called "garbage" in a comment during a campaign call Tuesday.

The Democratic president, according to a transcript prepared by official White House stenographers, said Tuesday, "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American."

The stenographer's office prepares accurate transcripts of the president's public and private remarks to preserve them for the National Archives and distribution to the public.

According to the AP, White House insiders confirmed that press officials altered the official transcript of the call in which Biden lambasted Trump supporters. This prompted criticism and objections from federal workers who documented the comments for the country's records.

According to the AP's inside sources, the transcript released by the White House press office corrected the original quote, adding an apostrophe to the comment, reading then, "supporter's" instead of "supporters." In this way, the White House argued that Biden was not actually criticizing the millions of Americans who support Trump, but the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage" during a New York rally of the former president.

Biden, who attempted to clarify the comment on his account on X, also claimed he did not insult Trump's parties but was responding to comments made by Hinchcliffe.

However, the AP confirmed that the transcript alteration was not made in compliance with established processes.

First, the change was made after the press office "conferred with the president," according to an internal email from the head of the stenographer's office obtained by the news outlet.

In that email, the supervisor called the handling by the press office "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 official wrote, adding, "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."

At that point, the team of two stenographers on duty that afternoon, represented by a typist and a proofreader, advised the White House that any editing of the transcript would have to be approved by their supervisor, the stenographer's office manager.

However, the supervisor was not available at the time, so the Press Office acted independently and posted the altered transcript on the White House website, distributing the edited commentary to the press and social media.

Moreover, the editing of the comment came at a politically sensitive time, when the White House was trying to respond to journalists' questions about Biden's controversial remarks, which provoked widespread criticism against him and his vice president, Kamala Harris.

Notably, Trump seized on Biden's comments to campaign, sending fundraising mailers to his supporters and hitching a ride on a garbage truck a day later.

Biden's comment was so controversial that even Kamala Harris distanced herself from it on Wednesday.

"Let me be clear ... I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for," said the Democratic vice president, clearly breaking with her political boss, who has been her boss until today.

The AP further revealed that, despite the email showing that the White House altered the comment without complying with protocol, the Press Office ignored the fact and proceeded with the edited transcript.

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates did not acknowledge the editing of the comment to the news agency: "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."

Republicans investigate whether the law was broken

Representatives Elise Stefanik and James Comer on Friday sent a letter to the White House counsel's office requesting "all documents and internal communications" related to the incident. Two days earlier, they had indicated they would conduct an investigation by sending a document preservation request.

"To date, the White House has not issued a corrected transcript, and the false transcript remains on the White House webpage," they argued before demanding that a version true to the president's "offensive" remarks be published.

The Republican representative from New York and the Kentucky noted that the editing of the transcript may have been a violation of federal law, specifically the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

"The White House cannot simply rewrite President Biden’s rhetoric," they said, suggesting the motive behind the change was "to safeguard Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign."