Donald Trump Riding in a Garbage Truck

Submission 2,070

Part of a series on Donald Trump. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Donald Trump Riding in a Garbage Truck refers to a 2024 Presidential Campaign stunt by former U.S. President Donald Trump in which he rode a MAGA and Trump 2024 branded garbage truck to his rally in Wisconsin in late October 2024 in response to President Joe Biden's comments that his voters were "the real garbage" after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe said Puerto Rico is a "floating island of garbage." Memes of Trump's garbage truck trolling attempt surfaced en masse on social media platforms like Twitter / X, Reddit and TikTok (among others) in the following days. Some of the photos and videos of Trump riding the garbage truck were compared to his previous campaign strategy in which he worked at a McDonald's for a few hours leading up to the election as a jab at Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Background

On October 29th, 2024, during a video call for Latino voter outreach, United States President Joe Biden commented on comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's controversy in which he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally days before. Biden said, "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” which was later posted on X by user @CalltoActivism,^[8] amassing over 2.4 million views and 94,000 comments in two days.

President Biden's comment spawned an array of memes by Trump supporters comparing^[9] him to Hillary Clinton's 2016 comment "Basket of Deplorables statement," which was similarly mocked and memed during the 2016 election]

Donald Trump's Response

On October 30th, 2024, the X^[1] account @TrumpWarRoom tweeted a recording from CNN showing Donald Trump fielding questions from reporters in Green Bay, Wisconsin, riding in a MAGA campaign-themed garbage truck. The stunt was a direct response to Joe Biden's previous comment^[2] at Trump's weekend rally, saying, "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters." The initial tweet received over 313,000 views and 6,400 likes in a day (shown below).

Trump's team also shared a picture of him inside the garbage truck on his social media platform^[3] Truth Social, captioning the post, "Kamala and Joe call us all garbage. I call you the HEART and SOUL of AMERICA!" The post (seen below) amassed more than 11,000 likes and 3,400 reposts in a day.

Online Reactions

On October 30th, 2024, internet users reacted en masse to the photos and videos of Donald Trump's garbage truck ride. For example, the @TrumpWarRoom X page^[4] posted a version of the Literal Coolest Thing Ever meme, adding Trump's photo inside the MAGA garbage truck (seen below), which amassed over 11,000 likes and 720 reposts in a day.

On the same day, X^[5] user @ElieNYC replied to a video of Trump riding the garbage truck, writing that "the Republican Party in 2024 is worshiping a man being driven around in circles in a garbage truck. This is MAGA." The tweet (seen below) garnered more than 39,000 likes and 8,500 reposts in a day.

TikTokers also commented on Trump's garbage truck campaign stunt, like TikTok user @donlemonofficial^[6] on October 30th, who questioned the strategy, saying, "Is this a presidential campaign or an audition for SNL?" The video (seen below) received roughly 479,000 plays and 43,000 likes in a day.

Also on October 30th, 2024, Redditor^[7] KegsForGreg posted a collection of Trump's MAGA garbage truck pictures to the subreddit /r/stupidpol (seen below), which amassed over 190 upvotes and 90 comments in a day.