Biden angers GOP associating 'garbage' with Trump supporters

Former President Donald Trump insisted Tuesday night he hasn't watched comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's Madison Square Garden remarks referring to Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage" before finally acknowledging that the comedian "probably" shouldn't have been there.

Trump's latest comments came in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity. Earlier Tuesday, Trump told ABC News' Rachel Scott he didn't hear the comedian's comments.

"I have no idea who he is," Trump told Hannity in the later interview. "Somebody said there was a comedian that joked about Puerto Rico … and I have no idea who he is. Never saw him, never heard of him, and don't want to hear of him."

Trump said that Hinchcliffe's comments weren't vetted by the campaign.

"But I have no idea, they put a comedian in, which everybody does," Trump said. "You throw comedians in, you don't vet them and go crazy. It's nobody's fault, but somebody said some bad things," he said.

Trump added, "Now what they've done is taken somebody that has nothing to do with the party, has nothing to do with us, said something, and they try and make a big deal. But I don't know who it is. I don't even know who put him in, and I can't imagine it's a big deal. I've done more for Puerto Rico than any president."

It wasn't until Hannity asked, "You wish he wasn't there?" that Trump finally said, "Probably," adding, "I don't know if it's a big deal or not, but I don't want anybody making nasty jokes or stupid jokes. Probably he shouldn't have been there."

Touting his relationship with Puerto Rico, Trump recounted the time he visited in 2017 to survey damage from Hurricane Maria and tossed paper towels to a crowd of people.

"I mean, they love me in Puerto Rico, and I love them," Trump said. … I was there handing out food. I got in trouble for that, too, because we were having fun. We had a lot of people, and I was throwing paper towels to the back. They were all having fun everywhere, and the fake news came over, 'That was very disrespectful to be throwing towels.'"

-ABC News' Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh

President Joe Biden has drawn fire from Republicans due to comments he made at a Voto Latino campaign call Tuesday night -- when his wording seemed to be referring to the supporters of former President Donald Trump as “garbage.”

"Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” Biden said, according to a video clip on CNN.

He went on to call Puerto Ricans "good, decent, honorable people" before adding, "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters."

The comment was followed by: "His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been."

Republicans quickly pounced on the comment, comparing it to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment in 2016.

Sen. Marco Rubio broke the news to Trump onstage as he campaigned in Allentown, Philadelphia.

Trump responded, "Remember, Hillary said 'deplorable.'"

"That didn't work out," he continued. "'Garbage' I think is worse, right?"

Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded by saying, "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hate America and don't deserve four more years. Kamala must answer for this disgraceful attack on tens of millions of Americans."

The new controversy comes one week out from the election, and on the night that Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her closing campaign message on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C.

“The President referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage,’” a White House spokesperson said in a statement.

A transcript of the remarks given to ABC News by the White House has an apostrophe at the end of “supporter's,” but it is unclear from the video of Biden’s remarks whether the president meant that word in the possessive.

A spokesman for Harris’ campaign referred ABC News to the White House’s official statement.

Biden responded shortly afterward with a post on X, saying that it was specifically the "hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump's supporter" that he was calling "garbage."

-ABC News' Justin R. Gomez

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said this week that if elected, former President Donald Trump will put him in "control" of America's public health agencies.

Kennedy made the remarks on a Zoom call with supporters Monday night.

The agencies Kennedy mentioned include the Centers for Disease Control, the Federal Drug Administration, the National Institute of Health and the United States Department of Agriculture.

"The key, which President Trump has promised me, is control of the public health agencies, which is HHS and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH, and a few others. And also the USDA, which is, you know, key to making America healthy, because we’ve got to get off of seed oils and we’ve got to get off of pesticides... and we need to make that transition to regenerative agriculture," Kennedy said.

RFK Jr., who made his own bid for president in the 2024 election, told supporters what he would do if appointed the position.

"I want to make sure to reorient NIH, so that instead of developing drugs and serving as an incubator for new pharmaceutical products, that instead NIH will be figuring out what’s causing these autism rates and autoimmune diseases and the neurodevelopmental diseases," Kennedy said.

"And I want to make sure that the FDA -- that the people on the panels at FDA do not have conflicts of interest, their people are genuinely interested in public health," he added.

"I want to end the financial entanglements – the fact that the FDA gets half of its budget from the pharmaceutical companies. I’d like to get the pharma ads off of TV," Kennedy said.

Kennedy’s remarks drew condemnation from Trump’s former surgeon general Jerome Adams.

"If RFK has a significant influence on the next administration, that could further erode people's willingness to get up to date with recommended vaccines, and I am worried about the impact that could have on our nation's health, on our nation's economy, on our global security,” Adams said at a public health conference, according to according to New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg.

-ABC News' Will McDuffie

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley told Fox News' Bret Baier on Tuesday evening that she hasn’t spoken with former President Donald Trump since June — but she's prepared to support his campaign, if asked.

“Last time I talked to him was back in June,” Haley said. “They're very aware that we're on standby. They know that we would be there to help.”

“But look, we're on the same team," Haley continued. "It is their campaign's decision on what he needs in these last final days, it does not bother me at all.”

ABC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

In the same interview, Haley denounced the messaging at Trump's rally in New York earlier this week, calling it "overly masculine" and "edgy." She said it was "harmful" to allow a comedian to disparage Puerto Ricans, and she thought that the choice of speakers might have made women feel "uncomfortable."

"This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they’ve got going," she said. "Fifty-three percent of the electorate are women. Women will vote. They care about how they’re being talked to."

Despite those criticisms, she said, "There's no bad blood between me and the president. We want Donald Trump to win."

Haley stressed that she is not voting for Trump for his personality, but rather for his policies, adding: “I don't agree with Trump 100% of time, but I don't agree with Kamala Harris on anything.”

-ABC News' Soorin Kim