In Wisconsin, Trump courts ‘garbage’ outrage as Harris courts students

GREEN BAY, Wis. — In Green Bay on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump donned an orange vest and climbed into a garbage truck to try to highlight a gaffe President Joe Biden made just the day before.

Nearly 160 miles away in Madison, Vice President Kamala Harris stepped onstage to thousands of screaming students and vowed she would chart a new way forward.

The split-screen played out in this key swing state six days ahead of the election, as both campaigns sprinted across battlegrounds to rally their voters in what’s expected to be a race won on the margins.

Each side says it couldn’t be closer here — the state where Biden won by just more than 20,600 votes in 2020. Wisconsin is among a handful of states almost certain to decide the election — an essential piece of the “blue wall” that is critical to Harris’ path to the White House. Trump is attempting a replay of 2016, when he denied Democrat Hillary Clinton a victory by capturing each of the blue wall states, including Wisconsin. 

Both Harris and Trump will return here Friday, holding dueling rallies in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city. 

While Harris’ team specifically targeted young voters from the University of Wisconsin on Wednesday, Trump’s campaign had a garbage-themed day.

It moved to capitalize on a comment Biden made Tuesday that appeared to refer to Trump supporters as being “garbage.” Amid instant backlash, both Biden and the White House scrambled to clarify his comments, saying they specifically referred to the “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico” comedian Tony Hinchcliffe used at a Trump rally over the weekend at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The White House also released a transcript attempting to show what Biden meant to say, adding an apostrophe to “supporters”: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

The political damage, however, was done.

Trump not only focused on Biden’s comments at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday afternoon; he also sat in a garbage truck at the Green Bay airport when he arrived later in the evening for a rally.

“Joe Biden should be ashamed of himself, if he knows what he’s even doing,” Trump said from the garbage truck. 

The message also became a major theme at the Green Bay rally, where Trump took the stage in a fluorescent vest akin to the kind a garbage truck driver wears. Several speakers also brought up the issue, including legendary former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre.

“I can assure you we are not all garbage,” said Favre, who is being investigated in his home state, Mississippi, over allegations of welfare fraud. “How dare you say that.”

In his remarks, Trump also emphasized that he wanted to close the southern border, at times playing news clips about undocumented immigrants who committed crimes while they were in the U.S. illegally. He praised Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who has become one of his biggest financial supporters, and said he would protect women, whether they want protection from him or not.

“I want to protect the women of our country. … I’m president, I want to protect the women of our country,” Trump said. “I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not.”

Harris’ camp was focused on pushing voters to the polls Wednesday. A flurry of speakers — from Gov. Tony Evers to Sen. Tammy Baldwin to singer Gracie Abrams — urged the arena to get to the polls. 

Abrams was among the musical acts, with Mumford & Sons as the closer, to enthrall a rollicking crowd of more than 13,000, according to the campaign, before Harris arrived. 

With a banner in the backdrop that read “Badgers for Harris-Walz,” Harris cast Trump as grievance-obsessed and seeking unchecked power. She took a moment to address the students in the arena. 

“I see the promise of America and all the young leaders who are voting for the first time. And I love your generation. I just love you guys,” she said, smiling. “You now know fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers [and] are standing up for freedom, and what I know about you is these issues are not theoretical. This is not political for you. This is your lived experience, and I see you, and I see your power. I see your power, and I am so proud of you.”

A roaring crowd waved red and white signs reading “Vote,” and in one section of the audience, a group of people displayed a banner that said “Freedom,” a theme Harris adopted in her campaign from the start. There were also two brief interruptions from protesters seeking an end to the Israeli-Gaza war.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., attended the rally after he stumped on the trail with Baldwin. Schiff said in a brief interview with NBC News that Harris crystallized the path ahead in her speech on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday evening. He sidestepped a question about Biden’s remarks on Tuesday and Trump’s garbage truck gag response, saying he wasn’t focused on the matter. 

Polling from Marquette University Law School released Wednesday had Harris topping Trump 50% to 49%, well within the poll’s margin of error. That’s a tick lower for Harris, who in September weighed in at 52% to Trump’s 48% in the same survey.

“It is so close that even the slightest shift in these last six days can tip the race, whether we are talking about the seven swing states, most of which are on a knife’s edge, or whether we are talking about Wisconsin,” said Charles Franklin, the poll’s director. “This is a race that really could go either way, and we shouldn’t be particularly surprised.”

Trump’s dress-up play was the second time in recent weeks he has staged an event for the cameras, after he wore a McDonald’s uniform and served supporters at the drive-thru.

Whether those actions resonate remains to be seen. 

But to Harris supporters, Trump’s outrage over Biden’s comments rang hollow.

Linda Gator, who lives in the Sheboygan area, scoffed when she was asked about it.

“Give me a break,” she said. “You’ve got a man spewing hate continuously, and Biden makes a mistake, and we all know that the man has a stuttering problem. We all know that at times we all misspeak, but one time when he’s misspoken, it gets blown up, frankly, by your peers?”

Cyrus Obut, a father of three who attended the rally with two of his daughters, said he believed Trump would gain no traction with his trash talk. He pointed to the Madison Square Garden event, saying comments there were “racist” and full of “bigotry.”

“At least for Biden, he apologized, he said he misspoke. But on the other side, did he? No,” Obut said.

Matt Dixon reported from Green Bay and Natasha Korecki and Shaquille Brewster from Madison.