According to two US government officials and an internal email obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, White House press officials changed the official transcript of a call in which President Joe Biden appeared to take a swipe at Donald Trump supporters, drawing objections from federal workers who document such remarks for posterity.
Biden sparked outrage earlier this week when he addressed Latino activists in response to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s racist remarks at a Trump rally, in which he referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
According to a transcript made by official White House stenographers, Biden told the Latino group on a Tuesday evening video chat, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters—his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
The transcript issued by the White House press office, however, presented the comment with an apostrophe, reading “supporter’s” rather than “supporters,” according to officials, indicating that Biden was targeting Hinchcliffe rather than the millions of Americans who support Trump for president.
The modification was made after the press office “conferred with the president,” according to an internal email from the stenographers’ office head acquired by The Associated Press. Two government sources confirmed the email’s authenticity, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal concerns.
In the email, the supervisor described the press office’s handling of the situation as “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 manager wrote. He further stated: “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.”
The transcript was edited as the White House hurried to reply to a barrage of reporters’ questions regarding Biden’s remarks. The president’s words conflicted with Vice President Kamala Harris’ nearly identical statement outside the White House, in which she urged Americans of all viewpoints to treat one another with respect.
The Trump team immediately began fundraising based on the comments, and the next day, Trump conducted a photo op inside a garbage truck to capitalize on Biden’s criticism.
Harris distanced herself from Biden’s remarks on Wednesday, marking the clearest rupture with the president since taking over at the top of the Democratic ticket just over three months ago. “Let me be clear,” she told the press. “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”
According to the email, the press office had requested the stenographers to swiftly write a transcript of the call among the chaos. Biden responded to social media to clarify that he was not criticizing all Trump fans, but only the “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporters at his Madison Square Garden rally.”
The stenographer’s office is responsible for generating accurate transcripts of the president’s public and private remarks for preservation in the National Archives and distribution to the public.
The two-person stenography team on duty that evening — a “typer” and a “proofer” — stated that any changes to the transcript would require approval from their supervisor, the head of the stenographers’ office.
The supervisor was not immediately available to evaluate the recording, so the press office released the changed transcript on the White House website and distributed it to the press and on social media in an attempt to deflate the narrative.
That evening, White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates released an altered version of the comment on X, stating that Biden was referring “to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage.'”
The supervisor, a veteran White House staffer, expressed concerns about the press office action in an email to White House communications director Ben LaBolt, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and other press and communications officials, but did not comment on the veracity of the edit.
“Regardless of urgency, it is essential to our transcripts’ authenticity and legitimacy that we adhere to consistent protocol for requesting edits, approval, and release,” the manger stated in a letter.
The supervisor declined to respond to The Associated Press, referring queries to the White House press office.
When asked to react, Bates did not address the transcript change, saying: “The President 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 noted in the transcript.”
House Republicans, meanwhile, were debating whether to initiate a probe into the incident. House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., accused White House officials on Wednesday of “releasing a false transcript” of Biden’s remarks.
In a letter to White House counsel Ed Siskel on Wednesday, they requested that the government keep documents and internal correspondence pertaining to Biden’s statements and the publication of the transcript.
“White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the United States to be more politically on message,” the congressmen wrote to Siskel.
According to Stefanik and Comer, the conduct could violate the Presidential Records Act of 1978.