White House altered Biden transcript

Biden’s statement and the firestorm since has threatened to distract from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign ahead of Election Day. The Associated Press first reported on the administration’s altering of the original transcript on Thursday night, adding fuel to a controversy that Harris and the White House are eager to move past. At 9:35pm, after attempting to contact me again, the Press Office created a 9:45pm release timeline that I didn’t confirm, and then edited and released the campaign transcript at 10:09pm, bypassing standard Stenography Office edit and release protocols.” That decision, Sands wrote, was “a breach of protocol and spoliation of transcript integrity” because it’s her office, not the press shop, that should have the final say in determining what the president actually said. “If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,” the supervisor wrote, adding, “Our Stenography Office transcript — released to our distro, which includes the National Archives — is now different than the version edited and released to the public by Press Office staff.” In her email, Sands did not weigh in on the accuracy of the press team’s edit or indicate that she would or would not have approved the amended transcript. White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates, who issued his own post on X on Tuesday night aiming to clarify the intent of Biden’s remark, suggested that the addition of the apostrophe was a matter of ensuring the transcript’s accuracy.