Representatives Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) and James Comer (R., Ky.) on Friday demanded for a second time that the White House release an accurate version of the transcript that edited President Joe Biden’s remark likening former president Donald Trump’s supporters to “garbage.”
The pair of House Republican leaders made the same request in their first letter to White House counsel Edward Siskel on Wednesday, but that correspondence has so far gone unanswered. In the time between the two letters, the Associated Press reported that while White House stenographers submitted an accurate transcript to the National Archives and Records Administration, White House press officials released the altered transcript after conferring with the president.
“That President Biden himself may have interfered to break protocol to hide his outrageous remarks is unprecedented,” Stefanik and Comer wrote in their follow-up letter.
The original transcript prepared by stenographers quoted Biden as saying: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.” The comment was made during a campaign call with Latino activists.
Despite pushback from the stenographers, the White House Press Office added an apostrophe to “supporters” in order to change the quote’s meaning.
The White House claimed Biden only criticized comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who joked at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally that Puerto Rico is a “floating island of garbage.” Biden insisted he did not refer to the millions of Trump supporters.
Stefanik and Comer expressed concern that the White House deliberately disregarded proper protocol in favor of politics as Election Day nears.
“The White House cannot simply rewrite President Biden’s rhetoric,” the two lawmakers wrote. “In this case, it appears the White House is doing so to safeguard Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign.”
The head of the White House stenographers’ office explained the standard transcript process in an internal email.
“If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,” the stenography supervisor wrote.
“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.”
Stefanik and Comer questioned whether the White House’s action violates the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which governs the documenting and preservation of a presidential administration’s records.
The latest letter also demands that the White House release all documents and internal communications pertaining to Biden’s “garbage” statement and the release of the false transcript, as well as make the White House Stenography Office’s head supervisor available for a briefing before the House Oversight Committee.