USA: Trump capitalises on Biden calling Americans ‘garbage’

Trump learned about the Joe Biden footage while he was on stage in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with Senator Marco Rubio and immediately referenced Hillary Clinton’s 2016 remark calling some Trump supporters “deplorables”.

“Garbage I think is worse right?” Trump said, before adding, “But please forgive him, for he not knoweth what he said”.

Biden denies he was referring to Trump supporters collectively, and says he was speaking about comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who used a Trump rally to refer to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage”.

Trump later weighed in again on his Truth Social website, accusing Harris of “running a campaign of hate”.

He wrote: “She has spent all week comparing her political opponents to the most evil mass murderers in history. Now, on top of everything, Joe Biden calls our supporters ‘garbage’.”

“You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American People,” he added.

Could President Biden’s comment, that on first hearing seems to compare Trump supporters to floating garbage, overshadow Kamala Harris’s big night and possibly harm her campaign?

Donald Trump learned about it while he was speaking in Pennsylvania, where Florida Senator Marco Rubio took to the stage to hand Trump a note with the “breaking news”.

The Republican candidate’s mind went straight to the remark Hillary Clinton made during the 2016 campaign, that half of his supporters were from a “basket of deplorables”.

Trump repeated the phrase to his advantage for the remainder of that campaign, which he won.The White House has moved quickly to try to clarify that Biden was referring to the “hateful rhetoric” as “garbage”, not Trump’s supporters – but the words will not go away.

A comedian’s crude joke about Puerto Rico – a potential embarrassment for Trump – may have morphed into an awkward problem for both candidates.

Kamala Harris gave a big speech in Washington DC on Tuesday night.

She stood at the same spot that Donald Trump spoke from an hour before rioters attacked the Capitol on 6 January, 2021 – seeking to remind voters of a violent and highly emotive moment in modern America’s history.

On the importance of election Kamala said: “This election is probably the most important vote you will ever cast” and a “choice between freedom and chaos”. US voters can “write the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told”.

Kamal Harris also attacked Trump saying: Donald Trump “stood at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to overturn the will of the people”. Trump has an “enemies list… [I would] walk in with a to-do list”.

The economy has been a key issue in America and on inflation the vice president said: “Now our biggest challenge is to lower costs, costs that were rising even before the pandemic and that are still too high.” On cost of living pressures: “I get it.”

On abortion she said: People have a “fundamental freedom” to “make decisions about their own bodies”. Pledged to restore protections for abortion access.

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