Biden angers GOP associating 'garbage' with Trump supporters

A week out from the election, former first lady Michelle Obama headlined a star-studded get out the vote event for her nonpartisan civic organization When We All Vote in Atlanta.

Obama did not give the same speech she had while with Vice President Kamala Harris in Michigan on Saturday. Instead of focusing on reproductive rights, she warned against the dangers of being an apathetic voter.

“In this country, change takes not days, but decades, y'all. So that can be frustrating. So, it's natural to wonder if anyone hears you, if anyone sees you. It is healthy to push your leaders to be better, even to even to question the whole system,” Obama told the audience.

Obama urged these voters to take the same interest in this election as the most “powerful” people in the world.

“I have sat at tables with some of the most powerful people in the world. And let me tell you, a lot of these people sitting at those tables have absolutely no clue what your lives are like,” said Obama. “They could not care less about your apathy. In fact, they welcome it. They welcome it. They are happy to be in full control of this game. That's why every single person who has real power in this world, they are fully engaged in the political process.”

She told the audience that they cannot “afford” to be apathetic.

“So y'all, you have a choice. You can listen to them. You can fold your arms and stay home. Or you can listen to me. And if you want to listen to me, here's a warning. There are only a handful of very wealthy people in the world who can actually afford to be indifferent about our politics.”

She continued, “You don't have the luxury to be indifferent to who's in power and who makes the rules. And for the young people, as the years go on, you all are going to be the ones left to clean up the mess. Good, because I'm not going to be here forever. And I don't want I don't want you, all our young people, to lookup one day and realize that you don't even recognize the world you're living in."

Obama pushed the audience to make sure that those in power actually "care" about those voters.

“How are you going to make sure that those in power actually care about you? And it's not by sitting out, are we getting help? It's not by sitting out. Or is it by you? It's by using the tools you have to make sure that those in power actually see you."

The event boasted appearances from Marsai Martin, Kerry Washington, Kelly Rowland, Shonda Rhimes, Ciara, Liza Koshy, Rita Wilson and Ari Lennox.

-ABC News' Gabriella Abdul-Hakim

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