Less than a week before the November 5 election, still uncertain, the Democratic president complicated the task of the vice-president, by describing the supporters of his Republican predecessor as “trash”, before correcting himself.
Donald Trump tried to exploit a gaffe by Joe Biden on his voters on Wednesday by appearing in a garbage truck, in the home stretch of an extremely tense race for the White House against Kamala Harris.
Less than a week before the November 5 election, still uncertain, the Democratic president complicated the task of the vice-president, by describing the supporters of his Republican predecessor as “trash”, before correcting himself.
But the damage is done in a bitter campaign where each camp tries to exploit the missteps of the other, and where the two candidates compete for every vote or almost in the “swing states”, these seven states decisive for victory.
“My garbage truck”
Donald Trump denounced the president's comments, believing that the Democrat “finally said” what he “thought” of the Trumpists. Before summoning the press on Wednesday and settling in, an orange jacket on his back, aboard a garbage truck.
“What do you think of my garbage truck?” he asked from Wisconsin. “This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Donald Trump, fond of this type of communication operation, is trying to turn the situation to his advantage, even though all this controversy over garbage started from his own camp.
The Republican was in fact in turmoil after racist remarks from a comedian on the stage of his big rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday in New York.
Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico, a US territory in the Caribbean, a “floating island of garbage”, comments from which the Republican distanced himself.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre assured Wednesday that it was this “hateful rhetoric” that Joe Biden wanted to criticize by speaking of “rubbish”, and not the supporters of his great rival, whom he had beaten in 2020.
Candidate Kamala Harris, for her part, assured that she “deeply disagrees with any criticism against people based on the person for whom they vote”, to journalists who questioned her about Joe Biden's comments.
The controversy comes at a bad time for the vice-president, who launched a message of unity on Tuesday evening in front of tens of thousands of people in Washington. In a very presidentially staged speech, she urged Americans to “turn the page” on Trump.
The vice-president continued in the same unifying vein on Wednesday, in North Carolina like Donald Trump. This state has not voted Democratic since Barack Obama in 2008.
“Cheating”
Six days before this thrilling election, the Democrat and the Republican are tracking each other.
Donald Trump, who never admitted his defeat in 2020, already seems to be laying the groundwork for a new challenge, if he were to lose on November 5. He denounced on Wednesday “cheating” on “a scale never seen before” in Pennsylvania, the most coveted swing state.
Judicial authorities in a county in this northeastern state announced Friday the opening of an investigation into a batch of 2,500 voter registration applications containing inaccurate identity information.
Trump: “Biden, the worst American president” – 30/10
On Wednesday, former actor and Republican governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he would vote for Kamala Harris, saying he was an “American before being a Republican” and too “furious” at Donald Trump to remain silent.
The presidential election promises to be one of the closest in American history. According to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, the two candidates are closely matched.
More than 57 million people have already voted early or by mail. As of 2020, a total of some 160 million Americans have voted.
