Word Games

The White House tries damage control:

First tweeted out by NBC News White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez, Politico’s Jonathan Lemire, who was recently hired to be a host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, tried to clean the comment up, saying Biden was using the possessive of “supporter” to refer just to the comedian who made a joke about Puerto Rico. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American,” Lemire rewrote Biden’s quote. The White House then quickly released a “transcript” of the call that included the apostrophe. However, when asked by Axios if it talked to Biden before posting the transcript to confirm that is what he meant, the White House declined to comment. The next morning on MSNBC, Lemire was back, this time reading from the White House transcript to assert that Biden didn’t say what everybody knows he said. Oddly, MSNBC chose not to actually play the video of what Biden said so viewers could make up their own minds.

Garbage removal at work...