While the news implies Biden really did mean to call former President Donald Trump‘s supporters garbage despite attempts at a cleanup, it also suggests a less-than-ideal attitude toward the electorate, according to DePauw University communications professor Jeffrey McCall.

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“It demonstrates the White House is perfectly comfortable with trying to deceive the citizenry, engaging in propaganda instead of reality,” McCall said, adding that “this demonstrates a very dim and cynical vision of how the White House information manipulators view the public.”

According to the original transcript, Biden told the Latino advocacy organization Voto Latino during a campaign call, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

But the transcript released by the White House’s press office included an apostrophe, so it read “supporter’s” and not “supporters,” after speaking with Biden but not the head of the stenography office as is protocol.

White House press aides made the changes to the transcript, stenographed by career, nonpolitical federal employees, on Tuesday, according to two government officials and an internal email obtained Thursday by the Associated Press.

“What makes this brazen attempt to alter historical reality so disturbing is that the video of President Biden making these remarks is all over the internet, so people have full access to what he actually said,” McCall said. “So the White House information managers have the gall to think that fixing the transcript will make people forget the actual wording of Biden’s remarks and not believe their own ears.”

The White House spokesman Andrew Bates told the Associated Press that Biden “confirmed in his tweet on Tuesday evening that he was addressing the hateful rhetoric from the comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.”

The alteration controversy undercuts messaging by Biden and Democrats that Trump doesn’t respect political norms and would stack a second administration with pre-vetted loyalists. The Biden administration has made efforts to Trump-proof the federal government in the event that he takes office.

Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer to President George W. Bush, said the story raises questions about Hatch Act violations, since Biden was giving a political message at the time.

“[The White House press office] is treating this as an official speech and getting involved with it,” he said. “We’ve had this issue with Biden’s press office before. The first question is the Hatch Act. Is this essentially a political speech? If so, the White House press office shouldn’t be playing around with it.”

Painter said he couldn’t recall a similar issue taking place in the Bush White House, even though the 43rd president was widely known for his gaffes. The larger issue at play, Painter said, is the fact that Biden has reached a point where he is not able to communicate clearly and too much power over his official communications is being handled by staffers.

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The White House press office did not respond to questions from the Washington Examiner about who was involved with the altered transcript and how many people played a role.

Regardless of the ethical considerations, the alteration story kept the president’s garbage remark in the headlines for another day during a time that Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to make her closing sale to the electorate.

Trump’s campaign has repeatedly highlighted the “garbage” remark, without an apostrophe, saying it’s indicative of how Biden and his party truly feel about right-leaning voters.

“The Harris-Biden Administration lied about inflation, lied about jobs numbers, lied about the border being secure, lied about crime statistics, and now they’ve illegally altered an official White House transcript in a failed attempt to edit the truth,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.

“Joe Biden called more than half the country ‘garbage’ and the Harris-Biden Administration cannot be trusted — it is the most corrupt and dishonest Administration in history,” she added. “President Trump will fix it.”

Trump, for his part, climbed into an American flag-laden garbage truck in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday night and delivered campaign remarks in a hi-vis safety vest.

Other Republicans, including House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY), launched congressional inquiries. The pair sent a letter Friday to White House Counsel Edward Siskel to produce internal documents on the inaccurate transcript and make available the chief stenographer to brief the House Oversight Committee.

“The White House cannot simply rewrite President Biden’s rhetoric,” the pair wrote.

Harris has distanced herself from Biden’s remark.

“I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris said Wednesday at Joint Base Andrews before another day on the campaign trail. “As you heard in my speech last night and continuously throughout my career, I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not.”