AP: White House altered Biden 'garbage' transcript, drawing rebuke from stenographer

White House officials changed the transcript of President Biden’s comments in which he appeared to compare former President Trump’s supporters to “garbage,” prompting pushback from the office tasked with documenting the president’s comments, The Associated Press reported.

Biden sparked backlash on Tuesday when, on a call with a Latino advocacy group, he weighed in on a racist joke from a comedian at a Trump rally likening Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage.”

As audio and video clips of the gaffe began circulating, the White House issued in statement, arguing the president was being misinterpreted and had been referring to the rhetoric at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally Sunday, not to Trump's supporters, as “garbage.”

It also provided a fuller transcript of the comment, which included an apostrophe with “supporter’s,” to indicate Biden was referring to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s “demonization of Latinos” as “garbage.”

And Biden himself took to social media to say he “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.”

But The Associated Press late Thursday reported the transcript prepared by stenographers referred to “supporters” without an apostrophe. The change was made after press aides conferred with Biden about his remarks, the AP reported.

The head of the stenographers' office wrote, in an email obtained by the AP, that the press office’s handling of the issue was “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 wrote in the email obtained by the AP.

“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,” they added.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told The Associated Press that Biden “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.”

Biden’s comments handed the Trump campaign a lifeline at a time when the former president and his allies were under intense scrutiny for the rhetoric at his Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden, where speakers made numerous racist and sexist comments about Democrats.

The former president rode in a garbage truck and wore an orange safety vest at a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday in an effort to draw attention to the remarks. Some of his supporters wore similar vests to Trump’s Thursday events as they have used Biden’s remarks as a rallying cry.

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House GOP conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) penned a letter to White House counsel Edward Siskel on Wednesday, accusing the administration of releasing an incorrect transcript of the remarks. That action, they said, may be in violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which applies to the official records of presidential administrations.

Vice President Harris, who replaced Biden as the nominee in July, quickly distanced herself from Biden’s comments. She has made outreach to Republicans skeptical of Trump a key part of her campaign.

“Let me be clear: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris told reporters on Wednesday.