Trump jumps into garbage truck to highlight Biden gaffe
Source: CNN
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has hopped into a rubbish collection truck emblazoned with his name as the final week of the US election campaign descends into a “garbage” fight.
Trump, dressed in a high-visibility safety vest, staged the moment for the media in a bid to call out US President Joe Biden’s apparent remark about Trump’s supporters being “garbage”.
Trump walked down the steps of his Boeing 757 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of the white garbage truck.
“How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said. “This is in honour of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Later, Trump spoke at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, still wearing the high-vis safety vest.
Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Photo: Getty
Biden had been responding to a rally comment by a Trump speaker, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and disparaged Black Americans, Jewish people, Palestinians and Latinos.
Trump’s campaign distanced itself from the Puerto Rico comment at the event where other Trump allies also made vulgar and racist remarks.
Trump, who has made a series of inflammatory and racist statements on the campaign trail, has since called his rally “an absolute love fest.”
Speaking during a fundraising Zoom call with Voto Latino, an organisation that encourages young Latino Americans to register to vote, Biden said, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s – his – his demonisation of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American,” according to a transcript posted on X by a White House spokesperson.
The White House transcript included an apostrophe, suggesting the president was referring to one supporter, Hinchcliffe.
It was unclear from the sound of the video clip of the call whether Biden meant the plural “supporters” as both words sound exactly the same.
Biden sought to clarify his remark soon after it became public.
“Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporters at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage – which is the only word I can think of to describe it,” Biden posted on X late on Tuesday.
“His demonisation of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.”
Source: X
Harris, meanwhile, urged voters in North Carolina to “turn the page” on Trump, who she said was focused on his own grievances, rather than Americans’ needs.
“If he is elected, on day one Donald Trump will walk into that office with an enemies list. When I am elected, I will walk in with a to-do list,” she said.
Harris held rallies in a trio of battleground states as part of a blitz in the closing week of the election, with stops in Raleigh, North Carolina; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Madison, Wisconsin.
She wrapped up her rally in Wisconsin with a direct message to first-time voters, who Democrats see as crucial to their path to victory next week.
“Your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power.”
The race has tightened in its final weeks, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Harris leading Trump by just 44 per cent to 43 per cent among registered voters nationally, well within the poll’s margin of error.
Other opinion polls show tight margins in the seven battleground states that will decide the November 5 election.
Tensions are running high. Election workers in competitive states are bracing for violence, and authorities in Florida arrested a man for menacing voters with a machete.
Trump continues to falsely claim that his 2020 loss to Biden was the result of widespread fraud and has signalled that he will challenge a 2024 defeat if he deems it unfair, having filed along with supporters a wave of lawsuits this year objecting to various election rules around the country.
Since his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has built broad appeal with working-class white Americans, while Democrats have consolidated their support among more affluent, college-educated voters.
Control of the White House and Congress has flipped back and forth in recent elections, allowing neither party to claim control over both branches of government for long.
The duelling rallies in North Carolina highlighted the crucial role the southern state might play in the election.
It was the only battleground state to back Trump in 2020. It last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2008 though it has had a Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, since 2017.
Trump leads Harris by just one percentage point in the state, according to a polling average by FiveThirtyEight.
-with AP and PA