"Just moments ago, Joe Biden stated that our supporters are garbage."

"He's talking about the border patrol, he's talking about nurses, he's talking about teachers, he's talking about everyday Americans who love their country and want to dream big again and support you, Mr. President. And I hope their campaign is about to apologize for what Joe Biden just said. We are not garbage. We are patriots who love America and thank you for running Mr. President."

Said Marco Rubio to Donald Trump, on stage at Trump's rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania last night. Click the video below, which is cued up to the spot. Trump appears to be hearing this news of President Biden's statement for the first time.

Trump reacts: "Wow. That's terrible.... Remember Hillary? She said 'deplorable' and then she said 'irredeemable.' Right? But she said 'deplorable.' That didn't work out. 'Garbage,' I think is worse. Right? But he doesn't know. You have to please forgive him. Please forgive him! For he not knoweth what he said."

I believe that last bit was an attempt to evoke the words of Jesus: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

Trump continues: "These people. Terrible terrible terrible — to say a thing like that, but he really doesn't know. He really, honestly, he doesn't. And I'm convinced that he likes me more than he likes Kamala. Convinced. But that's a terrible thing."

It was a terrible thing to say, but you can see that Trump knows that Biden's rhetoric — like Hillary's "deplorable" — was an excellent gift to his campaign. And it came just as Kamala Harris was delivering her big closing-argument speech that was supposed to reach out to all Americans and to characterize her as the one who, unlike Trump, embraced everybody.

Here's the NYT article about that: "Harris’s Mission: Disqualify Trump, but Extend a Hand to His Voters/Kamala Harris, in her closing argument to voters, acknowledged an inescapable political reality: Donald Trump is not a fringe figure within his own party or the nation" (free-access link):

In the final days of her campaign, Ms. Harris is trying to separate the man from his movement. Gone is the framing of Republicans as “extreme MAGA,” the catchphrase attack adopted by Mr. Biden during the 2022 midterms. Instead, in ways big and small, Ms. Harris is extending an open hand to Republicans who may have voted for the former president in the past....  

Some in the Democratic Party — including the man who lives in the White House illuminated behind her on Tuesday — appear to be still reckoning with that new approach. Just before she took the stage, President Biden seemed to refer to those who support Mr. Trump as “garbage”...

 Just before she took the stage! 

... in a campaign call that quickly ricocheted across the internet, was seized upon by Republicans and the president himself soon sought to clarify on social media. Mr. Biden said he meant only the comedian at Mr. Trump’s Sunday rally who had called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage.”

What Biden said — here's the video — is: "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of [Latinos?] is unconscionable. And it's un-American. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been."

Why did Biden put himself out there yesterday, taking chances, stepping on her big speech? Does he just not know what he's doing? That's one of the things Trump said about it, but the other was "I'm convinced that he likes me more than he likes Kamala." Don't overlook the possibility that Biden is trying to hurt Kamala. It reminds me of the time Biden showed up at a White House press briefing and pulled attention away from a big Harris speech. Did he interfere on purpose? 

And what was that event of Biden's yesterday? I'm reading news articles and it's not easy to discern. For example, the NYT has "Trump and His Allies Link Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Comment to 2016 ‘Deplorables’ Remark/Within minutes of the clip of President Biden’s remarks going viral, the Trump campaign and others were using it to attack Kamala Harris and Democrats." You'd think somewhere in the first few paragraphs, we'd read about why Biden was sitting at a desk talking to a camera. But no. I have no idea what that event was supposed to be. The camera angle and fuzziness make it look like second-rate social media.

Googling, I get to the White House official page and see that it was a phone call: "Remarks by President Biden on a Call with Voto Latino."

IN THE COMMENTS: Kate writes:

The Weave here is so beautiful. The throughline: "terrible". He mixes in Hillary's deplorables, adds pity and forgiveness for Joe while emphasizing that Joe knows nothing, and then slides a delicious dig at Kamala before returning to "terrible". Anyone who can't appreciate The Weave should study this reaction. And it's all off-the-cuff.

And the Jesus joke. Who off-handedly tosses in a Jesus-on-the-cross parody? Is that a sacrilege? Or is it striking evidence that he really is a Christian? To think of forgiveness is to think of Jesus Christ.

ADDED: I can see that the White House transcript, linked above, has a transcription that is either accurate or designed to support the explanation that Biden was using the word "garbage" only to describe the remark the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made about Puerto Rico ("floating island garbage"). Here's the transcription:

The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.

The idea is that "his supporter" — singular — is Tony Hinchcliffe, and it only seems to be plural because of the possessive apostrophe-s. The 2 sentences are connected into one, and the "his" in "his supporter's/supporters" and the "his" in "his demonization" are not the same "his."

The first "his" is Trump's — Trump's supporter's/supporter — and the second "his" is Hinchcliffe's — Hinchcliffe's demonization.

This is the linguistic problem of coreference. You can explore it by replacing the 2 usages of the word "his" with the "his"s with referents. There are 2 interpretations:

1. The only garbage I see floating out there is Trump's supporter’s — Trump's supporter’s demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.

2. The only garbage I see floating out there is Trump's supporters. Trump's demonization of [Latinos?] is unconscionable. And it's un-American. 

A problem with interpretation #1 is that the word "is" appears twice. You have to see Biden as restarting the sentence. In the first effort, the subject is "garbage," but then he rearranges it, making "demonization" the subject. They could have used punctuation to stress this idea: "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable...."

I feel as though I'm deeper into the weeds than anyone will go. Is anyone still with me? Anyone interested in the problems of coreference and misperceived coreference? I doubt it. I suspect Harris supporters will snap up interpretation #1 and Trump supporters will laugh at the apostrophe argument and find interpretation #2 so obvious that I'm wasting their time.