After comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s revolting and bigoted jokes about Puerto Ricans and other ethnic minorities at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, Republicans have been desperate to find a way out of their defensive crouch. In a tortured attempt to turn the page, they’ve seized on an awkward gaffe President Joe Biden made as he criticized Hinchcliffe. But there’s nothing comparable about Hinchcliffe’s and Biden’s remarks. Moreover, to first complain about liberal hyper-sensitivity and then pivot on a dime to describe Biden as monstrous makes Republicans look preposterous.
Were Biden’s remarks awkward and easily misunderstood? Sure. But it’s also easy to deduce that the way his comment came off was unintentional.
During a video call with Voto Latino on Tuesday night, Biden criticized Hinchcliffe’s joke that Puerto Rico is a “floating island of garbage” as beyond the pale.
“They’re good, decent, honorable people,” Biden said of the Puerto Rican community. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done.”
Or did Biden’s operative phrase end with “his supporter’s?”
White House press secretary Andrew Bates immediately posted on X that Biden was referring “to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage.’” A transcript Bates shared includes an apostrophe that, if accurate, would mean Biden was referring to Hinchcliffe: “The only garbage I see is his supporter’s.” Shortly thereafter Biden posted on X a more forceful clarifying statement:
Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.
And Harris distanced herself from Biden’s comments, telling reporters, “I think that first of all he clarified his comments, but let me be clear: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”
Were Biden’s remarks awkward and easily misunderstood? Sure. But it’s also easy to deduce that the way his comment came off was unintentional. Biden has no record of using rhetoric to disparage American voters he disagrees with, and his rhetorical style is to emphasize unity and what binds people together. What Biden does have a record of doing is misspeaking, speaking unclearly and confusingly shifting course midsentence. In fact, the sharp increase in his career-long tendency to generate gaffes, due to apparent age-related decline, is a reason he’s not running for re-election. It is reasonable to assume that he didn’t mean to trash Trump supporters, and to take his immediate clarification in good faith .
That hasn’t stopped Republicans from freaking out over the statement and acting as if Biden’s comments were worse than Hinchcliffe’s. Vance said at a rally in defense of Hinchcliffe’s joke, “We have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America,” and called Harris’ inability to take a joke a sign that she was not “fit to be the president.” But the next day Vance breathlessly condemned Biden’s gaffe as a “disgusting” attack on half the country and said, “There’s no excuse for this.” Former President Donald Trump argued that Biden’s remarks were “worse” than “deplorables,” a reference to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s 2016 reference to half of Trump’s supporters as belonging in a “basket of deplorables.” (Clinton later apologized.)
Both the substance and the context of Hinchcliffe’s remarks are damning. He made bigoted “jokes” about Puerto Rico as “garbage,” Jews as stingy and Black people carving watermelons. And he made them at a rally for a candidate running a white nationalist presidential campaign who is using Hiterlian rhetoric to describe migrants as “poisoning the blood of our country” and who has, according to a report in The Atlantic citing two people who heard him say it, expressed a desire for “the kind of generals that Hitler had.” Republicans have defended Hinchliffe’s remarks and Trump called the rally where the racist jokes were made “a lovefest.”
Meanwhile, Biden was criticizing bigotry. He has nothing to apologize for, given his immediate clarification, and his record of civic generosity. To suggest that his comment absolves Republicans of their offensive remarks couldn’t be further from the truth.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.