Independents react negatively to Biden’s ‘garbage’ comments in real time

A Fox News focus group of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents gave reactions to President Biden’s recent comments seeming to call supporters of former President Trump "garbage," with the latter two groups registering a strongly negative impression of the president’s words.

The groups recently participated in a dial test while watching Biden’s controversial statements that he made during a virtual Harris campaign call with Latino voters on Tuesday evening. The test allowed viewers to input their reactions while watching the clip. These reactions showed up as a moving line on a graph indicating whether they were reacting positively, neutrally, or negatively to Biden’s words as he spoke them.

The test revealed that, while Democratic participants remained somewhat positive about Biden’s anti-Trump statements – including when he appeared to call Trump supporters "garbage" – Republicans and Independents sharply dipped into negative reactions as he made them.

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Though Republican watchers’ reactions appeared to be the most negative, with the red line representing them veering down well below the neutral line for most of Biden’s 49-second statement, the yellow line representing independents also dipped low into negative response for the majority of the clip as well. 

While never registering as intensely negative as the red line, the yellow line sharply dropped off the neutral plane as Biden declared that Trump "doesn’t care about the Latino community" and that he’s a "failed businessman."

The Independent line stayed low until it briefly ticked up (while still in the negative) when Biden mentioned Trump wanting to end "birthright citizenship."

Once Biden appeared to say, "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters," the yellow line took a notable downturn again, getting close to the Republican reaction line that was at its lowest point.

Meanwhile, the blue Democrat line represented the inverse reaction to both Independents and Republicans, traveling well above the neutral reaction line and gradually climbing as Biden made the "garbage" remarks.

The White House, on Wednesday, released a transcript of Biden’s remarks. 

The official White House transcript says, "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American." 

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates sought to clarify Biden’s remarks, saying, "The president referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage.’"

– Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.