Biden caused a firestorm with the remarks in a campaign call yesterday, as he addressed a row that erupted after one of Trump’s warm-up speakers at a New York rally referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage”.

“Listen, I think that first of all, he clarified his comments,” Vice-President Harris told reporters at Joint Base Andrews near Washington when asked about the outgoing president’s words.

“But let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”

As she headed back on the campaign trail, Harris, 60, insisted she would be a “president for all Americans, whether you vote for me or not”.

Republicans pounced on Biden’s comments, which threatened to overshadow a major election speech by Harris outside the White House yesterday in which she called for unity instead of what she said was chaos and division under Trump.

The row over the remarks by the 81-year-old Biden, who dropped out of the White House race in July, also underscored his growing marginalisation from the Harris campaign.

US media have reported that Harris aides had feared that Biden is an electoral liability and rejected his suggestions to make joint appearances on the campaign trail.

Biden made the comments in a video call with the nonprofit VotoLatino and they went viral shortly afterwards.

“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” said Biden.

“His, his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American.”

Biden later said on X, formerly Twitter, that he had “referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter”.

“That’s all I meant to say,” he said.

The White House later released a transcript adding a single apostrophe – claiming that Biden said “supporter’s” instead of “supporters”, in a bid to back up his assertion that he was referring to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s comments at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.