Questions arise over White House transcript of Biden’s call to Latino activists

White House press officials altered the official transcript of a call in which President Joe Biden appeared to take a jab at Donald Trump supporters, drawing objections from federal workers who document such remarks for posterity, according to two US government officials and an internal email. obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday.

Biden created a stir earlier this week with his remarks to Latino activists who responded to racist comments at a Trump rally made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to the US island territory of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of the garbage”.

Biden, according to a transcript prepared by official White House stenographers, told the Latino group in a video call Tuesday night: “The only garbage I see floating around there are his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unthinkable and does not agree. -American.”

However, the transcript released by the White House press office rendered the quote with an apostrophe, reading “supporters” rather than “supporters,” which aides say indicated Biden was criticizing Hinchcliffe, not millions of Americans who support Trump for the presidency.

The change was made after the press office “conferred with the president,” according to an internal email from the chief of the stenographers office that was obtained by the AP. The authenticity of the email was confirmed by two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The supervisor, in the email, called the press office’s handling of the matter “a breach of protocol and a spoliation of the integrity of the transcript between the shorthand and press offices.”

“If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript, but cannot independently edit it,” the supervisor wrote, adding: “Our Shorthand Office transcript — released to our distribution, which includes the National Archives — is now . different from the version edited and released to the public by press office staff”.

The editing of the transcript came as the White House scrambled to respond to a flurry of questions from reporters about Biden’s comments. The president’s remarks clashed with Vice President Kamala Harris’ near-simultaneous speech outside the White House, in which she called for treating Americans of differing ideologies with respect.

Trump’s campaign quickly moved to fundraise from the quote, and the next day, Trump himself held a photo shoot inside a garbage truck to try to capitalize on Biden’s criticism.

Harris distanced himself from Biden’s comments on Wednesday — making the clearest break from the president since he took over as the top of the Democratic ticket just over three months ago. “Let me be clear,” she told reporters, “I totally disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”

According to the email, the press office asked stenographers to quickly produce a transcript of the call amid the storm. Biden himself took to social media to say he wasn’t calling all Trump supporters trash and was specifically referring to the “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by the Trump supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally” .

The stenographers office is charged with preparing accurate transcripts of the president’s public and private remarks for preservation by the National Archives and distribution to the public.

The two-person stenography team on duty that evening—a “typist” and “proofer”—told that any changes to the transcription would have to be approved by their supervisor, the chief of the stenographers’ office.

The supervisor was not immediately available to review the audio, but the press office went ahead and published the redacted transcript on the White House website and shared it with the media and on social media in an effort to play down the story .

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates also posted an edited version of the quote on X that evening and wrote that Biden referred to “the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage.’

The supervisor, a career White House employee, expressed concern about the press office’s action — but did not consider the accuracy of the edit — in an email to White House communications director Ben LaBolt. press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and other press and communications officials.

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

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

Asked for comment, Bates did not address the change to the transcript and said: “The president confirmed in his tweet Tuesday night that he was addressing the comedian’s hateful rhetoric at the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden. This was reflected in the transcript. ”

House Republicans, meanwhile, were debating launching 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 staff of “releasing a false transcript” of Biden’s remarks.

In a letter to White House counsel Ed Siskel on Wednesday, they asked the administration to preserve documents and internal communications related to Biden’s remarks and release the transcript.

“White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the United States to be more political on message,” the lawmakers wrote to Siskel.

Stefanik and Comer said the action could be a violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978.