US President Joe Biden sparked a controversy when he compared supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to garbage.

Biden was commenting on a racist joke a comedian made at a Trump rally days earlier likening Puerto Rico to an “island of garbage.” “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters, his demonisation of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been,” Biden said in his remarks on a campaign call for Latino voters on Tuesday.

“Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Well, let me tell you something. I don't know the Puerto Rican that -- that I know -- or a Puerto Rico, where I'm fr- -- in my home state of Delaware, they're good, decent, honourable people,” he said.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio raised this issue in front of thousands of Trump supporters in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Trump, the former president, was also quick to condemn it.

Trump, who was holding a rally in Allentown, described Biden’s remarks as “terrible,” and likened them to Hillary Clinton's comments calling some of Trump's supporters "deplorables" in 2016. “So, you have to remember Hillary [Clinton]–she said ‘deplorable’ and then she said ‘irredeemable,’" Trump said. ‘Garbage’ I think is worse.” In a damage control exercise, Biden later tried to explain his remarks on X. “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,“ Biden wrote.

”His demonisation 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,” Biden said.

Trump’s running mate Ohio Senator J D Vance described it as disgusting.

‘“This is disgusting. Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country,” he wrote on X.

“There’s no excuse for this. I hope Americans reject it," he added.

Karoline Leavitt, the Trump Campaign's National Press Secretary, said in a statement that Trump is backed by Latinos, Black voters, union workers law enforcement officers, border patrol agents and Americans of all faiths.

"(Kamala) Harris, (Tim) Walz and Biden have labelled these great Americans as fascists, Nazis, and now, garbage,” Leavitt said.

‘There’s no way to spin it: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don’t just hate President Trump, they despise the tens of millions of Americans who support him. Kamala does not deserve four more years. President Trump will be a president for all Americans,” she said. Biden’s remarks came as Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a speech in Washington DC about her desire to move the United States past an era of divisive rhetoric and name-calling to one marked by unity and compromise.

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