Westmoreland Review

Laura Burkett, a resident of Lower Burrell, expressed concerns about President Biden calling [Trump's] supporters garbage. "I am the walking personification of the melting pot." said Burkett,  "I love and accept everyone."

"Yet, they don’t accept me because I am one of the 80 million Americans that voted for Trump in 2020 and will again in 2024." said Burkett, "Our lives, our humanity mean nothing to him because 'garbage' is meant to be taken out."

"And after two assassination attempts on Trump due to rhetoric like this, am I supposed to remain numb and indifferent that the same vile characterization of half the country you are supposed to be leading is now pointed at me?" said Burkett.

U.S. Sen. candidate Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) said President Joe Biden's labeling of half of the American populace as “garbage” was inflammatory and fosters hate and violence.

“The sitting president of the United States just called half of America ‘garbage,’” McCormick wrote in an Oct. 29 social media post on X. “This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that leads to hate and violence in our country, and to come from, Bob Casey’s “close friend” and the current Commander-in-Chief is totally unacceptable.”

Attached to McCormick's social media post was a video clip of Joe Biden speaking during a Voto Latino get-out-the-vote call, reacting to the news that a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday made a controversial joke about Puerto Rico being ‘a floating island of garbage.’

“The only garbage I see floating out here is his [Trump's] supporters,” Biden said during the call.

According to Fox News, Biden’s comments quickly faced backlash from conservatives who drew comparisons with Hillary Clinton’s remarks in 2016 referring to Trump supporters as ‘deplorables.’

Dave McCormick ran for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in Pennsylvania in 2022, narrowly losing the primary. In September 2023, he announced his second campaign for the U.S. Senate. Running unopposed, he secured the Republican nomination and will challenge Democratic incumbent Senator Bob Casey Jr. in the 2024 general election. 

He served as CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, and held various executive roles in technology and financial services. Before his business career, McCormick was a U.S. Army officer and later worked in the George W. Bush administration, where he held positions including Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs.