White House altered Biden transcript

Late Tuesday, as Joe Biden’s comment referring to Donald Trump’s supporters as “garbage” created a firestorm, top communications aides inside the White House broke with protocol, amending the official transcript of his comment — without waiting for sign-off from the stenography office.

The edit was a single apostrophe — but one freighted with political and electoral implications.

Biden, during a call with Latino leaders, reacted strongly to a Trump-backing comedian’s remark at the GOP nominee’s Sunday rally disparaging Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage.” The president, according to the transcript prepared by White House stenographers, told the people on the call: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

Biden’s statement and the firestorm since has threatened to distract from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign ahead of Election Day. The call on which Biden made the remarks was held shortly before Harris’ campaign speech just hundreds of yards away on the Ellipse making her closing argument for voters to reject Trump.

The edit to the official White House transcript underscores the lengths Biden administration officials went to limit the political damage of Biden’s comments. The fallout of the president’s remark continues to reverberate, adding even greater anxiety to Biden’s final public appearances before the election, expected Friday and Saturday. In addition, Republicans on Capitol Hill are already asking questions about the transcript change, raising the possibility of an investigation.

No one can hear an apostrophe. But after deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini and communications director Ben LaBolt spoke with Biden about the remark and the brewing backlash, they were confident that Biden hadn’t meant to disparage all Trump supporters and was intending to reference comedian Tony Hinchcliffe.

They first attempted to clarify his intent with a tweet from Biden’s account that the president personally approved. But as the communications team reviewed the transcript of the call, aides decided to add the apostrophe, changing “supporters” to “supporter’s” so it would be clearer that the president was referring to Hinchcliffe alone, according to three people familiar with the process who were granted anonymity to speak candidly.

The Associated Press first reported on the administration’s altering of the original transcript on Thursday night, adding fuel to a controversy that Harris and the White House are eager to move past. Both Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, were quick on Wednesday morning to disavow any disparaging of people, intended or not, based on who they vote for or support.

That report referenced an email the director of the stenography office, Amy Sands, sent to LaBolt, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and other aides in the press and communications shop on Wednesday laying out what happened and why it was a breach of procedure.

Sands, according to two of the people familiar with the process, had sought out those colleagues in person on Wednesday morning and spoke to at least one of them directly before sending the email.

Sands, who has worked in the White House stenography office for more than a decade, declined to comment.

But in her email, shared with POLITICO by another official, was precise about the timeline of events, stating that press aides did try to contact her about the changes more than once but opted to send out the edited transcript before she was able to respond.

“The press office, having conferred with the president, requested changes to the transcript at 9:10pm and attempted to contact me for approval,” Sands wrote. “I was unable to review their requested changes immediately. At 9:35pm, after attempting to contact me again, the Press Office created a 9:45pm release timeline that I didn't confirm, and then edited and released the campaign transcript at 10:09pm, bypassing standard Stenography Office edit and release protocols.”

That decision, Sands wrote, was “a breach of protocol and spoliation of transcript integrity” because it’s her office, not the press shop, that should have the final say in determining what the president actually said. What he, or any other official, meant to say is immaterial for stenographers, whose office is non-political and whose work is to create an accurate historical record that will be preserved by the National Archives.

“If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,” the supervisor wrote, adding, “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.”

In her email, Sands did not weigh in on the accuracy of the press team’s edit or indicate that she would or would not have approved the amended transcript. Her expressed concern was not having the chance to review the audio and make a determination herself.

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates, who issued his own post on X on Tuesday night aiming to clarify the intent of Biden’s remark, suggested that the addition of the apostrophe was a matter of ensuring the transcript’s accuracy.

“The President confirmed in his tweet on Tuesday evening that he was addressing the hateful rhetoric from the comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally,” Bates said in a statement. “That was reflected in the transcript.”