Former President Donald Trump got a rare gift on Wednesday: for once, he had the opportunity to paint himself as a unifier and his opponent as a divider.
That was thanks to U.S. President Joe Biden, who appeared to refer to Trump’s supporters as “garbage” during a Zoom call with Latino voters on Tuesday.
The White House released a statement afterward clarifying Biden’s remarks, saying he was referring to the “hateful rhetoric” at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden over the weekend. But the damage was done.
Trump wasted no time seizing on Biden’s words; he showed up to his rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday evening in a white garbage truck emblazoned with the Trump 2024 logo.
“This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden,” Trump told reporters while wearing a neon orange safety vest.
He was still wearing the vest when he took the podium at his rally Wednesday evening, telling his supporters: “They treat you like garbage.”
It was a unique opportunity for Trump, who got to flip the script on Harris for the first time in the tumultuous 2024 election season.
Before Biden’s comments surfaced Tuesday, Harris emphasized a message of unity and compromise while speaking on the Ellipse at Washington, D.C., the same site of Trump’s pivotal January 6, 2021, speech to supporters.
“We are all here because we are fighting for a democracy and for the right of people to be heard and seen,” Harris told her supporters Tuesday. “We are not about the ‘enemy within.’ We are all in this together, and that is what we are fighting for.”
By Wednesday, everything had changed.
The White House was in full damage-control mode, and Harris was scrambling to clean up the mess that Biden had left. She weighed in on Biden’s comments Wednesday morning, saying she “strongly” disagrees with those who criticize people based on who they vote for.
Trump, meanwhile, spent Wednesday painting Harris and Democrats as divisive, while deflecting criticism of his own xenophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“For the past nine years, Kamala and her party have called us racists, bigots, fascists, deplorables, irredeemables, Nazis, and they called me Hitler,” Trump said at his Wisconsin rally as the crowd jeered and booed.
“They’ve bullied you, they’ve demonized us, they’ve censored us, they’ve de-platformed us, and they’ve weaponized the power of our own government against all of us,” he went on.
The Republican nominee went on to tout his campaign’s support from veterans, union workers, farmers, and “patriotic moms and dads of every race, religion, color, and creed.”
“We’re welcoming historic numbers of African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian-Americans, and Arab-Americans,” Trump said. “And we’re uniting Christians and Jews, Catholics and evangelicals, Muslims and Mormons, and everyone who simply wants to do one thing: make America great again.”
Wednesday’s rally came as Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck in the final sprint to Election Day on Tuesday, November 5.
Speaking to his supporters Wednesday, Trump urged them to turn out in droves and deliver him a “landslide” victory.
“This nation does not belong to them,” he said. “This nation belongs to you.”
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