Dressing like a sanitation worker and, at one point, appearing in the cab of a garbage truck, Donald Trump sought to convince voters in battleground state Wisconsin on Wednesday that Democrats believe those who vote for him are “garbage”.
The theatrics came in response to an apparent verbal gaffe made by Joe Biden the night before, which the president said was intended to condemn a comedian over his racist remarks at a massive rally Trump staged at New York City’s Madison Square Garden over the weekend.
But Trump and his allies have seized on Biden’s words to argue Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is insincere in her pledge to be a president for all Americans, even those who do not vote for her. In a visit to the city of Green Bay, which sits in a Republican-leaning region of a swing state that polls show is anyone’s to win, Trump hammered the point home by eschewing his normal suit jacket and donning a reflective orange vest for a speech to an arena packed with his red-hatted supporters.
“I have to begin by saying 250 million Americans are not garbage,” Trump said at the start of his nearly 90-minute speech. He did not specify how he arrived at the 250 million number, but it appears to be the approximate entire population of the United States minus those who voted for Biden in 2020.
“This week, Kamala has been comparing her political opponents to the most evil mass murderers in history, and now, speaking on a call for her campaign last night, crooked Joe Biden finally said what he and Kamala really think of our supporters. He called them garbage. No way!”
Biden’s gaffe, one of many he has made in his nearly four years in office, threatens to complicate Harris’s campaign, after her effort to win over Latino voters was reinvigorated by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s comment at Sunday’s Madison Square Garden rally that the US territory of Puerto Rico is “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean”.
Puerto Rican stars Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin have since announced their support for Harris, and on Wednesday, reggaeton singer Nicky Jam, who also has ties to the island, cited the remarks in withdrawing his endorsement of Trump.
Biden nonetheless appeared to gift the GOP a new line of attack, when he said on a Tuesday evening Zoom call with a Latino voters organization: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s – his – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American”. The president later clarified that he meant to criticize “the hateful rhetoric” against Latinos seen at Madison Square Garden, but the Trump campaign insisted Biden was denigrating to people who voted for the former president.
Harris played defense earlier on Wednesday, telling reporters: “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they voted for.” The vice-president has lately prioritized reaching out to moderate Republicans and independents, and campaigned alongside Republicans who have broken with Trump.
But at the Green Bay rally, Trump’s second appearance of the day after a stop in North Carolina, Biden’s words were all anyone wanted to talk about.
“I can assure you, we’re not garbage. How dare you say that,” said Brett Favre, the former quarterback for the Green Bay Packers NFL team who drew huge applause when he appeared at the rally.
“Looking out, I see police officers, teachers, nurses, grandparents, students. I see everyday Americans that make this country great.”
Wisconsin’s Republican senator Ron Johnson, who has survived repeated efforts by Democrats to unseat him and boost their numbers in Congress’s upper chamber, said: “He called you garbage, but, let’s face it, that’s not the first time the Democratic leaders have told half of Americans what they thought about them.” He likened it to Hillary Clinton’s quip shortly before her defeat in the 2016 election that half of Trump’s supporters belonged in a “basket of deplorables”.
While he had condemned Biden over the garbage comment at a rally in North Carolina earlier in the day, Trump opted for something of a political stunt in Green Bay, stepping off his private plane wearing the orange vest and jumping into the cab of a waiting garbage truck that had the words “Trump” written in blue lettering on its side.
In the arena later that evening, the 78-year-old recounted that he worried about being able to make it up the steep steps into the truck, and that, if he fell, it would be captured by “all the fake news” that was waiting on the tarmac. “The first stair’s like, up here, and I’m saying, shit”, he told the crowd.
“So I had the adrenaline going, and I made it.”
But as he took questions while sitting in the truck’s cab, he refused to apologize for Hinchcliffe’s comments about Puerto Rico, instead repeating his assertion that he did not know who the comedian was or how he got booked for Madison Square Garden.
“I don’t know anything about the comedian. I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him,” Trump said. “He’s a comedian, what can I tell you? I know nothing about him. I don’t know why he’s there.”