Biden really does think Trump voters are ‘garbage’

US president Joe Biden has re-emerged from wherever he was being hidden to hand Donald Trump an incredible, accidental boost. In a rare public appearance, he branded Trump’s supporters ‘garbage’.

For some reason, the president decided to wade into the row over a joke made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden last weekend. Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as a ‘floating island of garbage’, sparking some confected outrage among those pretending not to know he was joking. In response, while speaking to Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino, Biden said: ‘The only garbage I see floating out here is [Trump’s] supporters.’

The Republicans have understandably seized on the remark. Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, slammed it as ‘disgusting’. Florida senator Marco Rubio repeated the smear to Trump supporters at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania last night, to furious boos from the crowd.

The White House then rushed to try to retract the comments. Today, in a statement on X, Biden claimed that he was actually talking about the ‘hateful rhetoric’ being ‘spewed’ at the rally, not about Trump’s supporters themselves. That, he says, is ‘all I meant to say’.

But that is plainly not what he said. And everyone can guess it’s probably not what he meant, either. As Trump pointed out at the Allentown rally yesterday, Biden’s ‘garbage’ gaffe is highly reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s infamous ‘deplorables’ outburst. During her 2016 presidential campaign, she described ‘half’ of Trump’s supporters as ‘racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic’, saying they all belonged in a ‘basket of deplorables’. It was a blunder that many, including Clinton herself, believe cost her the election.

Clearly, the Democrats have learnt nothing from 2016. Given that almost half of American voters are considering voting for Trump next week, labelling them ‘garbage’ is not exactly a smart move. Then again, the Democratic elites have never tried to make a secret of their disdain for blue-collar people. Over the past few months, they have been busy trying to paint anyone remotely Trump-curious as literally a Nazi. This ludicrous and historically illiterate campaign came to a head last weekend, when Harris’s VP pick, Tim Walz, explicitly compared Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally to a pro-Hitler rally that was held in the same venue in the 1930s.

At this point, there’s no hiding the Dems’ contempt for Trump supporters. They have nothing in common with the largely working-class, non-college-educated Americans who care more about the economy, immigration and violent crime than they do climate change, defunding the police or ‘trans rights’. Joe Biden’s ‘garbage’ gaffe has simply made this anti-democratic snobbery plain for all to see.

Lauren Smith is a staff writer at spiked.