XPost: alt.dear.whitehouse, sac.politics, alt.politics.democrats   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   WASHINGTON (AP) — White House press officials altered the official   
   transcript of a call in which President Joe Biden appeared to take a   
   swipe at supporters of Donald Trump, drawing objections from the   
   federal workers who document such remarks for posterity, according to   
   two U.S. government officials and an internal email obtained Thursday   
   by The Associated Press.   
      
   Biden created an uproar earlier this week with his remarks to Latino   
   activists responding to racist comments at a Trump rally made by the   
   comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to the U.S. island territory of   
   Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”   
      
   Biden, according to a transcript prepared by the official White House   
   stenographers, told the Latino group on a Tuesday evening video call,   
   “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his —   
   his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”   
      
   The transcript released by the White House press office, however,   
   rendered the quote with an apostrophe, reading “supporter’s” rather   
   than “supporters,” which aides said pointed to Biden criticizing   
   Hinchcliffe, not the millions of Americans who are supporting Trump for   
   president.   
      
   The change was made after the press office “conferred with the   
   president,” according to an internal email from the head of the   
   stenographers’ office that was obtained by The AP. The authenticity of   
   the email was confirmed by two government officials who spoke on   
   condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.   
      
      
   The supervisor, in the email, called the press office’s handling of the   
   matter “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 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.”   
      
   The edit of the transcript came as the White House scrambled to respond   
   to a wave of queries from reporters about Biden’s comments. The   
   president’s remarks clashed with Vice President Kamala Harris’ near-   
   simultaneous speech outside the White House in which she called for   
   treating Americans of differing ideologies with respect.   
      
   The Trump campaign quickly moved to fundraise off the quote, and the   
   next day, Trump himself held a photo op inside a garbage truck to try   
   to capitalize on Biden’s criticism.   
      
   Harris on Wednesday distanced herself from Biden’s comments — making   
   the clearest break from the president since she took over for him at   
   the top of the Democratic ticket just over three months ago. “Let me be   
   clear,” she told reporters, “I strongly disagree with any criticism of   
   people based on who they vote for.”   
      
   According to the email, the press office had asked the stenographers to   
   quickly produce a transcript of the call amid the firestorm. Biden   
   himself took to social media to say that he he was not calling all   
   Trump supporters garbage and that he was referring specifically to the   
   “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his   
   Madison Square Garden rally.”   
      
   The stenographers office is charged with preparing accurate transcripts   
   of public and private remarks of the president for preservation by the   
   National Archives and distribution to the public.   
      
   The two-person stenography team on duty that evening — a “typer” and   
   “proofer” — said any edit to the transcript would have to be approved   
   by their supervisor, the head of stenographers’ office.   
      
   The supervisor was not immediately available to review the audio, but   
   the press office went ahead and published the altered transcript on the   
   White House website and distributed it to press and on social media in   
   an effort to tamp down the story.   
      
   White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates that evening   
   also posted on X the edited version of the quote and wrote that Biden   
   was referring ”to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden   
   rally as ‘garbage.’”   
      
   The supervisor, a career employee of the White House, raised the   
   concerns about the press office action — but did not weigh in on the   
   accuracy of the edit — in an email to White House communications   
   director Ben LaBolt, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and other press   
   and communications officials.   
      
   “Regardless of urgency, it is essential to our transcripts’   
   authenticity and legitimacy that we adhere to consistent protocol for   
   requesting edits, approval, and release,” the supervisor wrote.   
      
   The supervisor declined to comment to The AP and referred questions   
   about the matter to the White House press office.   
      
   Asked to comment, Bates did not address the alteration of the   
   transcript and said: “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. That was reflected in the   
   transcript.”   
      
   Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said the White House   
   “unethically altered an official White House transcript in a failed   
   attempt to edit the truth.”   
      
   “Joe Biden called more than half the country ‘garbage’ and the Harris-   
   Biden Administration cannot be trusted,” she added. “President Trump   
   will fix it.”   
      
   House Republicans, meanwhile, were debating launching an investigation   
   into the matter. House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik,   
   R-N.Y., and House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-   
   Ky., on Wednesday accused White House staff of “releasing a false   
   transcript” of Biden’s remarks.   
      
   In a letter to White House counsel Ed Siskel on Wednesday, they called   
   on the administration to retain documents and internal communications   
   related to Biden’s remarks and the release of the transcript.   
      
   “White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the   
   United States to be more politically on message,” the lawmakers wrote   
   to Siskel.   
      
   Stefanik and Comer said the action could be in violation of the   
   Presidential Records Act of 1978.   
      
   https://apnews.com/article/biden-garbage-transcript-puerto-rico-trump-   
   326e2f516a94a470a423011a946b6252   
       
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)