CNN
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Donald Trump broke out the props Wednesday in the final days of this chaotic campaign as the former president seized on a garbled remark by President Joe Biden that seemed to insult Trump voters as “garbage.”
Trump emerged from his plane ahead of a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, wearing a bright orange and yellow safety vest before climbing into a garbage truck – with a big “TRUMP” sign emblazoned on the side – to take questions from reporters.
Biden has personally denied calling Trump supporters “garbage,” saying his comment on a video call Tuesday night been misinterpreted. The White House, on clean-up duty, insisted the president was only talking about one person, the little-known comedian who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” this weekend as he warmed up the Madison Square Garden crowd for Trump.
No matter Biden’s intention, Republicans eager to move on from the backlash to the New York City rally pounced on the remark, with Trump leading the way on the campaign trail.
From the passenger seat of the garbage truck, Trump suggested Biden’s comment should be attributed to Kamala Harris herself, saying the episode was “worse, really” than when Hillary Clinton described half of Trump’s supporters as “deplorables” during the 2016 campaign.
In between attacks on Biden and Harris over the remark, Trump said he didn’t think the military would “have to be used” to respond to the “enemies within” – the phrase he’s used to describe Americans who might protest his return to office. He also said he would accept the election results, with a familiar caveat.
“If they find no evidence of cheating anywhere, I’ll accept the results. I hope that’s going to be the case,” Trumps said. “Win, lose or draw, I hope that’s going to be the case.”
Still wearing the safety vest, Trump opened his Green Bay rally – one of his final chances to address Wisconsin voters before next week’s election – by speaking at length about the props. He praised his “very capable people” for getting it all together so quickly and then recapped their discussion beforehand.
“One of my people came in and said, ‘Sir, you know the word ‘garbage’ is the hottest thing right now. Out there, the hottest thing out there. Sir, would you like to drive a garbage truck?” Trump said. “They pulled up this garbage truck. I don’t know how the hell they did it so fast. I have very capable people. They put a big sign on the truck. Did you see it?”
The former president continued the story, recalling his amazement at the height of the truck and saying he could’ve done with a smaller model. He praised the appearance of the truck driver – “He looked like Cary Grant in his prime” – and confessed his anxiety over climbing into the truck with so many cameras watching. At one point, Trump had appeared to grab at – and miss – a door handle.
“I said, ‘Man, if I don’t get up there, this is going to be very embarrassing.’ These stupid people, they’ll say he’s cognitively and physically impaired,” Trump told the Wisconsin crowd. “So the stair, the first stair’s like up here. I’m saying, sh*t – so I had the adrenaline going, and I made it.”
Harris addressed the Biden comments earlier Wednesday, telling reporters, “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”
“I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not,” Harris said at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “And as president of the United States, I will be a president for all Americans, whether you vote for me or not.”
Shortly before Harris took the stage at the Ellipse in Washington – the same park Trump where had, on January 6, 2021, called on his supporters to “fight like hell” – Biden had lit the fuse in a conversation with pro-Harris Voto Latino advocates.
“And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico ‘a floating island of garbage,’” Biden said. “Well, let me tell you something … I don’t know the Puerto Rican that I know … or Puerto Rico where I’m – in my home state of Delaware – they’re good, decent, honorable people.”
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden added, pausing for a moment before continuing: “His, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American.”
Harris told reporters that she had spoken with Biden following her speech at the Ellipse in Washington, DC, on Tuesday night but that the “garbage” gaffe did not come up.
The White House transcript of the call, shared with the press, shows Biden saying “supporter’s” – the singular – not “supporters.”
NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, who spent most of his career with the Green Bay Packers, spoke before Trump at the rally Wednesday. He too used the platform to criticize Biden.
“We’re not garbage,” Favre said to the crowd. “How dare (Biden) say that?”
Trump thanked Favre for his support, saying there was “nobody like him” and that he was a “special guy.”
The former president, later in his own remarks, came to the topic of women and his previously stated desire to “protect” them – a message he said his advisers warned him against using.
Defiant, Trump went on.
“I want to protect the women of our country,” he said. “Well, I’m gonna do it, whether the women like it or not. I’m gonna protect them.”