Speaking during a Tuesday, October 29, interview on CNN, top pollster Frank Luntz explained to his CNN hosts via a live Skype call that Kamala’s momentum in these final days before the election might be very seriously kneecapped by President Joe Biden’s awful gaffe in which he appeared to have referred to Trump supporters as “garbage.”
President Biden said, as background, after a joke made by a guest comedian at Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden, “And 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 I know… or Puerto Rico where I’m – in my home state of Delaware – they’re good, decent, honorable people.”
Continuing, the president said, during virtual remarks as part of a Voto Latino get-out-the-vote call for Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” He added, “His, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American.”
Luntz, speaking to CNN about those comments, noted that President Biden’s remarks were much more of an issue than whatever had been said by a comedian at Trump’s rally. He said, “It’s going to be huge because this is not some comedian saying something stupid and offensive at a rally where he should have been just basically disinvited.”
Continuing, Luntz explained that, whatever Biden said, it was inappropriate. He explained, “This is the President of the United States endorsing his vice president saying something. And I know that there’s different interpretations about what he said. It’s still inappropriate. He still shouldn’t be doing it.”
He then noted that the comment will, like a similar comment made by Hillary Clinton in 2016, drive turnout for the former president. He said, “And I’ve watched Trump already seize this. The basket of deplorables was significant, was meaningful in 2016. In 2024, I can promise you that this is going to drive Trump turnout.”
Building on that, he noted that Trump is already taking advantage of Biden’s comments, saying, “He’s doing it already. I can see, I’m sure there’s going to be ads on as soon as tonight about this. This may be a turning point for those final 3% — and that’s all it is — who still need to be persuaded.” Watch him here:
President Biden tried to change his remarks after the fact, saying, “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. His demonization 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.”
Former President Trump, on the other hand, said, “Wow. That’s terrible. That’s what it says. That’s what it says. So, you have, 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?”
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