While we have come to expect the unexpected this election cycle, we didn’t have ‘garbage’ as the hottest topic of the final week of the race on our bingo card.
After Joe Biden called Donald Trump’s supporters “garbage” in the wake of a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” in a joke, the GOP nominee leaned into the controversy by taking a spin in a MAGA-branded garbage truck.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Stu Burguiere, host of Stu Does America, and Stephen L. Miller, host of Versus Media, to discuss Trump’s latest headline-grabbing moment and how it speaks to the authenticity of his campaign.
Trump Takes a Spin
Trump was in the battleground state of Wisconsin on Wednesday for a rally, and the campaign stop included an unexpected mode of transportation. Upon arriving in Green Bay, the former president hopped aboard a white garbage truck emblazoned with “Trump Make America Great Again 2024” on the side.
Trump wore an orange safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie as he bantered with reporters out the window. “How do you like my garbage truck,” he asked the press pool. “This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
The Republican nominee was still wearing the reflective garment when he took the stage at the rally, joking with the crowd that he kept it on because someone said it made him “look thinner.”
The stunt came less than 24 hours after Biden went viral late Tuesday for the way he disparaged Trump backers during a virtual Harris-Walz campaign event with Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” the president said. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
The White House immediately tried to cover-up the 81 year old’s comment – which was a reference to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s controversial quip at the MSG rally on Sunday – by adding an apostrophe to the word ‘supporters’ in the official transcript from the event to suggest Biden was only talking about Hinchcliffe.
Why Trump ‘Hits Different’
The Trump team wasted no time seizing on Biden’s remark, which is being likened to Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated “deplorables” comment in the homestretch of the 2016 election. “Trump did the right thing and leaned in,” Megyn said. “He wore the garbage vest, he got in a garbage truck, he held a quick mini presser from the garbage truck… and it is another iconic photo for Trump.”
While Burguiere admitted he probably would have hesitated to put Trump in the garbage truck or have him work the fryer at McDonald’s, he said the moments have proven to be savvy. “If I was in the meetings before they started scheduling this thing, the McDonald’s thing… I would be like, ‘No, dude, please don’t. You are going to look like [Michael] Dukakis with his head out of the tank,'” he said. “But there is just something unique about Trump where he can pull these things off. I mean, this was endearing.”
In Miller’s view, the garbage truck and McDonald’s visit dovetail with Trump’s unconventional interviews with the likes of Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Shawn Ryan and serve to broaden the coalition of voters he has been assembling since 2016.
“We can go through the antics and we can go through the brashness and all of that, but Trump started talking to voters that the Republican Party hadn’t been talking to for decades and that is why he is effective at doing these kinds of things,” Miller explained. “We can laugh at the gaudiness of the orange vest, but that hits different for people. He was largely allowed to rise to power in the Republican Party because he is speaking to people that the Republican Party has ignored.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Burguiere and Miller by tuning in to episode 932 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.