House GOP ramps up probe into Biden's "garbage" comment
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President Biden appears at a White House press conference on Oct. 4, 2024. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.
With just days until Nov. 5, House Republicans are escalating their investigation into the White House's handling of President Biden allegedly referring to Trump supporters as "garbage."
Why it matters: The move is in response to new reporting from the Associated Press that Biden's press office altered the transcript of his remarks over the objections of White House stenographers.
Driving the news: Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and James Comer (R-Ky.) sent a letter to the White House counsel's office on Friday telling them to produce all documents and communications related to the incident.
- They also demanded the release of an "accurate version" of the transcript and making the head of the White House Stenography Office available for a briefing to the House Oversight Committee.
- Stefanik, the House GOP Conference chair, and Comer, the Oversight panel chair, suggested the alteration of the transcript may have violated the Presidential Records Act.
- The two lawmakers previously sent the White House a document preservation request on Wednesday – the first step towards a probe.
Context: The comment came on Tuesday during a virtual event with progressive group Voto Latino. Biden was responding to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe likening Puerto Rico to an "island of garbage" at a Trump rally.
- Biden appeared to say of Trump, "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters."
- But according to the transcript released by the White House press office, he said: "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter's -- his -- his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American."
- Spokespeople for the White House and Democrats on the Oversight Committee did not immediately provide comment for this story.
Between the lines: Republicans have argued vigorously that the apostrophe placed in the transcript is erroneous and that Biden was actually criticizing individual Trump voters.
- They have made the "garbage" line a rallying cry in the final days of the 2024 campaign as Democrats have seized on Hinchcliffe's comments.
- Democrats, for their part, have cringed at Biden's inarticulacy and pointed to the scrap over the comment as illustrative of why he has been kept largely off the campaign trail.
