House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer is investigating the White House after a report revealed the edition of official records which documented controversial remarks by President Joe Biden seemingly aimed at Trump supporters.
The statement in question took place during a call with Voto Latino, an activist group. There, Biden made reference to the now-infamous joke made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe where he referred to Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage."
According to the transcript from the White House's stenographers, Biden's remarks were as it follows: "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American."
However, after broad condemnation, the president sought to clarify the message, saying he "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." White House spokesperson Andrew Bates later told CNN that Biden had meant to say "supporter's" rather than "supporters," making reference to a single person.
The transcript indeed reads "supporter's" rather than "supporters," a change reportedly made after the press office "conferred with the president," reads a passage of the internal email reported by The AP.
Comer opened the investigation after the report. In a letter addressed at Assistant to the President and White House Counsel Edward Siskel, the lawmaker, along with fellow Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, "demand the White House retain and preserve all documents and internal communications regarding President Biden's statement and the release of the inaccurate transcript." "We also demand that the White House issue a corrected transcript with the accurate words."
"White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the United States to be more politically on message. Though President Biden's relevance continues to diminish, his words continue to matter, even as they become increasingly divisive and erratic," the letter adds.
The Trump campaign has sought to seize the timing of the comment by different means, with the former president even climbing on a garbage truck while wearing an orange safety vest. He also dismiss Hinchcliffe's joke, saying "nobody loves our Latino community and our Puerto Rican community more than I do" in another public appearance.
According to the AP report, the supervisor of the records area criticized the press office for its handling of the situation, calling it 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 official added.
"I will deliver the best future for Puerto Ricans and for Hispanic Americans," he said last week in a rally in Allentown, a Latino-heavy town in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
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