United States President Joe Biden has been forced to issue a clarification after he appeared to refer to supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as “garbage”.

In a livestream on Tuesday with the advocacy group Voto Latino, Biden attempted to denounce the rhetoric at a recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, which was criticised as racist and misogynistic.

“Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage,” Biden said in the livestream, before proceeding to call Puerto Ricans “good, decent, honourable people”.

Then, he added, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his hatred — his demonisation of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

The episode was immediately seized upon by leading Republicans, including Trump, who interpreted the statement as an insult towards the average conservative voter.

Some drew parallels to Democrat Hillary Clinton, who called Trump’s supporters “deplorables” during her bid for the presidency in 2016.

But Biden and his team have since issued statements, seeking to clarify that his remarks applied only to the Madison Square Garden speaker, Trump supporter and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe.

White House responds

The White House spokesman Andrew Bates quickly dismissed the notion that Biden was referring to Trump supporters.

The Democratic president, Bates said, “referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as garbage” — not the voters.

In a transcript the White House released, the word “supporter’s” was a singular possessive, in seeming reference to Hinchcliffe, as opposed to the plural noun “supporters”.

Shortly afterwards, Biden also posted on the social media platform X to address the issue.

“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,” he wrote.

“His demonisation 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.”

For many Democrats, the scrutiny on Biden’s remarks was yet another reflection of his tendency to mangle his words or get information mixed up.

The 81-year-old’s seeming frailty, on display during his June debate with Trump, was the driving factor for him to eventually drop his bid for re-election. Even within his own party, critics questioned his continued ability to lead.

After Biden exited the race in July, Vice President Kamala Harris immediately stepped forward as his replacement, generating a surge of enthusiasm.

She has continued to defend Biden during her campaign, even telling the talk show The View “there is not a thing that comes to mind” that she would done differently than him.

Nevertheless, political observers have noted that Biden has been only involved in a handful of events organised by the Harris campaign. And Harris herself has frequently described herself as a “new generation of leadership”.

Biden’s remarks came on the same evening as Harris was delivering a key speech in Washington, DC, where she attempted to draw a distinction between her campaign and the divisiveness of Trump’s.

‘This is disgusting’

Republicans, meanwhile, have used Biden’s comments as a line of attack against Democrats, in the crucial final week of campaigning.

With the election a mere seven days away, Republicans have sought to distance Trump from Hinchcliffe’s remarks. Trump himself defended the rally as a “love-fest”.

“President Trump is backed by Latinos, Black voters, union workers, angel moms, law enforcement officers, border patrol agents, and Americans of all faiths — and Harris, Walz, and Biden have labeled these great Americans as fascists, Nazis, and now, garbage,” the Trump campaign said in a statement,

“There’s no way to spin it: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don’t just hate President Trump, they despise the tens of millions of Americans who support him.”

Trump’s running mate JD Vance also blasted Biden’s comments. “This is disgusting,” he said. “Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country. There’s no excuse for this. I hope Americans reject it.”

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Trump surrogate on the campaign trail, drew on his heritage as a Cuban American in his response.

“I hope their campaign is about to apologise for what Joe Biden just said. We are not garbage. We are patriots who love America,” he told a rally in the Latino stronghold of Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Some Democrats also distanced themselves from Biden’s words.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro told the news outlet CNN he would “never insult the good people of Pennsylvania or any Americans even if they chose to support a candidate that I didn’t support”.

In 2016, Clinton had referred to Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables”.

She later claimed she had been generalising, but among Trump supporters, her words were viewed as an attack on working-class people.