US election: Donald Trump drives garbage truck in response to Joe Biden’s comments

Former president Donald Trump has seized on Joe Biden’s gaffe about his supporters by driving a garbage truck while sporting a high-vis jacket.

“For Joe Biden to make that statement, it’s really a disgrace,” Mr Trump told reporters on Wednesday following a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Mr Trump wore the high-vis jacket during his speech on-stage before hopping into the garbage truck outside which was emblazoned with the words “Make America Great Again”.

The media stunt followed Mr Biden’s attempt to call out racist remarks by a speaker at a Trump campaign rally.

Mr Biden was responding on Tuesday to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at the rally on Sunday and also disparaged Black Americans, Jewish people, Palestinians and Latinos.

Mr Trump’s campaign distanced itself from the Puerto Rico comment at the event where other Trump allies also made vulgar and racist remarks. Mr Trump himself, who has made a series of inflammatory and racist statements on the campaign trail, on Tuesday called his rally “an absolute lovefest”.

Speaking during a fundraising Zoom call with Voto Latino, an organisation that encourages young Latino Americans to register to vote, Mr 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 Mr Biden meant the plural “supporters” as both words sound exactly the same.

But Mr Trump and other Republicans seized on Mr Biden’s comments, claiming he was calling Republican voters “garbage”.

Mr 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,” Mr 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.”

Meanwhile action movie star and former Republican California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger threw his support behind Democratic candidate Kamala Harris , saying “I will always be an American before I am a Republican.”

The Terminator star said he was offended by Republicans who refused to concede that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and the Republican nominee’s remark that America was “like a garbage can for the rest of the world.”

As governor, Schwarzenegger said, he learned to “love policy and hate politics” and added: “I hate politics more than ever.”

He also said “I don’t like either party right now,” arguing that neither would tackle US budget deficits, and that some Democrats’ policies were leading to increased crime.

“I want to tune out,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “But I can’t.”

“Because rejecting the results of an election is as un-American as it gets.”

— With Reuters