policy

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House press officials have altered the official transcript of a call wherein President Joe Biden appeared to take a swipe at Donald Trump supporters, drawing objections from federal employees who document such remarks for posterity, in response to reports two U.S. government officials and an internal email obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday.

Biden caused an uproar earlier this week along with his comments to Latino activists who responded to racist comments at a Trump rally by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called the US island territory of Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash.”

According to a transcript prepared by the official White House stenographers, Biden told the Latino group in a video call Tuesday night: “The only trash I see floating out there is his supporters – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and that.” is meaningless.” -American.”

However, within the transcript released by the White House press office, the quote was preceded by an apostrophe and browse “supporter” as a substitute of “supporter,” which aides say suggests Biden is criticizing Hinchcliffe fairly than the tens of millions of Americans who support Trump as president.

According to an internal email from the top of the stenographer's office obtained by The AP, the change was made after the press office “discussed with the president.” The authenticity of the e-mail was confirmed by two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to debate internal matters.

In the e-mail, the supervisor called the press office's handling of the matter “a breach of protocol and a compromise to transcript integrity between the stenography and press offices.”

“If there are differences in interpretation, the press office may choose to withhold the transcript, but cannot edit it independently,” the supervisor wrote, adding: “Our Stenography Office transcript – published for our distribution, which includes the National Archives – is now available.” differs from the version edited by Press Office staff and made available to the general public.”

The editing of the transcript got here because the White House scrambled to reply to a wave of inquiries from reporters about Biden's comments. The president's comments contradicted Vice President Kamala Harris' near-simultaneous speech on the White House, wherein she called for Americans of various ideologies to be treated with respect.

The Trump campaign quickly moved to lift funds for the quote, and the following day, Trump himself did a photograph op in a garbage truck to capitalize on Biden's criticism.

Harris distanced herself from Biden's comments on Wednesday, marking the clearest break with the president since she replaced him at the highest of the Democratic nominee list just over three months ago. “To be clear,” she told reporters, “I object to any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”

According to the e-mail, the press office had asked stenographers to quickly prepare a transcript of the decision amid the firestorm. Biden himself said on social media that he was not calling all Trump supporters trash, specifically referring to the “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico that Trump's supporters spread at his Madison Square Garden rally.”

The Stenographer's Office is tasked with preparing accurate transcripts of private and non-private statements by the President for preservation by the National Archives and distribution to the general public.

The two-person stenography team on duty that evening – a “scribe” and a “proofreader” – said that any editing of the minutes needed to be approved by their superior, the top of the stenographer's office.

The supervisor was not immediately available to review the audio recording, however the press office posted the altered transcript on the White House website and distributed it to the press and on social media to contain the story.

White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates also posted the edited version of the quote on X that evening, writing that Biden “called the hateful rhetoric on the Madison Square Garden rally 'garbage.'

The supervisor, a profession White House staffer, expressed concerns in regards to the press office's motion in an email to White House communications director Ben LaBolt and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre – but didn’t comment on the accuracy of the change. and communications officers.

“Regardless of the urgency, it is critical to the authenticity and legitimacy of our transcripts that we adhere to a consistent protocol for requesting edits, approvals and releases,” the supervisor wrote.

The supervisor declined to comment to the AP and referred questions on the matter to the White House press office.

Asked for comment, Bates didn’t address the change in protocol, saying, “The President confirmed in his tweet Tuesday night that he addressed the comedian's hateful rhetoric at Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden.” That was reflected within the Protocol reflects.”

Meanwhile, House Republicans debated whether to launch an investigation into the matter. House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., on Wednesday accused White House aides of “a false transcription” of Biden's remarks to have published.

In a letter to White House counsel Ed Siskel on Wednesday, they called on the administration to preserve documents and internal communications related to Biden's comments and the discharge of the transcript.

“White House staff cannot rephrase the words of the President of the United States to convey a more political message,” the lawmakers wrote to Siskel.

Stefanik and Comer said the motion could constitute a violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – Former President Donald Trump repeatedly digressed from his economy-focused message Saturday, as an alternative delivering illogical statements and private attacks, including declaring thrice that he looks higher than Vice President Kamala Harris.

At a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania, Trump alternated between making his economic case and making a number of insults and imitations of President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The former president seemed to be struggling to regulate to his latest opponent after Democrats replaced their nominee. During campaign appearances last week, he deviated from the policies he was purported to be talking about and as an alternative resorted to a series of familiar attack lines and insults.

As he began his speech attacking Democrats over inflation, Trump asked his supporters: “You don't mind if I lose the teleprompter for a second, do you? Joe Biden hates them.”

Joseph Costello, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, responded to Trump in a press release, saying: “Another rally, same old show” and that Trump “resorts to lies, insults and confused tirades” because he cannot sell his agenda.

“The more Americans hear Trump speak, the clearer the choice becomes this November: Vice President Harris is uniting voters with her positive vision of protecting our freedoms, building the middle class and moving America forward – and Donald Trump is trying to set us back,” Costello said.

Trump's rally in Wilkes-Barre took place partially of a vital swing state where he hopes conservative, white working-class voters near Biden's hometown of Scranton will boost Republicans' probabilities of retaking the White House.

His comments on Saturday got here as Democrats prepare for his or her four-day convention, which begins Monday in Chicago and can mark the welcome of Harris as their nominee. Her substitute of Biden lower than 4 months before the November election has given latest momentum to the Democrats and their coalition, but in addition represents a brand new challenge for Trump.

Trump attacked Harris on economic issues, linking her to the Biden administration's inflation problems and comparing her recent anti-price gouging proposal to measures in communist countries. Trump said a federal ban on food price gouging would result in food shortages, rationing and hunger. On Saturday, he was asked why she had not worked on an answer to the value problem when she and Biden were sworn in in 2021.

“Day one for Kamala was three and a half years ago. Why didn't she do it then? So today is day 1,305,” Trump said.

To counter high prices, Trump announced that on the primary day of his swearing-in as president, he would sign an executive order “directing all Cabinet secretaries and agency heads to use every power at our disposal to bring prices down. But we're going to bring them down in a capitalist way, not a communist way,” he said.

He predicted bankruptcy for the country, and Pennsylvania specifically, if Harris won, citing her past opposition to fracking, a widely used approach to oil and gas extraction within the state. Her campaign has tried to melt her stance on fracking by saying she’s going to not ban it, despite the fact that that was her position when she ran for president in 2020.

“Her country is going to be ruined anyway. She is totally against fracking,” Trump said.

But he also vacillated between criticism of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and imitations of Macron's French accent.

Trump attacked Harris' laughter, saying she was “not a very good wordsmith,” and mocked the names of the CNN moderators who moderated the controversy between him and Biden in June.

As he began to reflect on Harris' recent image on the duvet of Time magazine, he commented on the image's resemblance to classic Hollywood icons Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor, after which criticized a Wall Street Journal columnist who commented on Harris' beauty earlier this month.

“I look much better than her,” Trump said, drawing laughter from the gang. “I'm a better looking person than Kamala.”

He also had an issue with the way in which his style was typically portrayed in news reports.

“They'll say he's rambling. I'm not rambling. I'm a really smart guy,” he said.

Trump's rally on Saturday was his fifth at the world in Wilkes-Barre, the biggest city in Luzerne County, where he won the last two elections. Biden defeated Trump in neighboring Lackawanna County, where the Democrat has long emphasized his working-class roots in Scranton.

On Sunday, Harris is planning a bus trip that may begin in Pittsburgh and stop in Rochester, a small town further north. Trump has planned a visit to a factory in York that makes containers for nuclear fuel on Monday. Trump's running mate JD Vance is predicted in Philadelphia that day.

Some of Biden's loyal supporters in Scranton, a former industrial city of 76,000, were offended that party leadership was attempting to pressure the president to resign.

Diane Munley, 63, says she called dozens of members of Congress to lobby for Biden. Munley eventually got here to terms with Biden's decision and is now a robust supporter of Harris.

“I can't deny the excitement that exists right now for this ticket. I'm so excited,” Munley said. “It just didn't work out for Joe, and I couldn't see it at the time because I was so close to him.”

Bridy called Trump a “working man like us.” Trump is a billionaire who made his fortune in real estate.
“He's a fighter,” Bridy said. “I would like to see closed borders. He doesn't waste time. He gets straight to work and takes care of things the way they should be done.”

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Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Darlene Superville in Arlington, Virginia, contributed to this report.