Like Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy boards garbage truck to positively spin Biden’s ‘really disgusting, divisive’ gaffe
Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has pledged his wholehearted allegiance to Donald Trump’s re-election bid. Time and again, he has shown up in the Republican candidate’s support. The latest demonstration of their rivalry-turned-solidarity had the American entrepreneur waltzing down a path previously walked by Trump himself.
Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy rode a garbage truck to a Donald Trump campaign event in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 30.(X/Twitter)
In his response to President Joe Biden’s “really disgusting” follow-up to Trump rally comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s unwarranted opening statement about Puerto Rico and Latinos, Ramaswamy boarded a garbage truck in North Carolina on Wednesday, October 30.
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Vivek Ramaswamy torches Joe Biden’s ‘garbage’ insult
“I thought we could use what was, I think, a really disgusting and somewhat ugly and divisive comment from President Biden to create a positive moment out of this,” the biotech millionaire told The New York Post. Like Trump’s previous “garbage” parade in the characteristic fluorescent orange vest, Ramaswamy arrived on the back of a garbage truck at a Charlotte campaign event wearing a yellow vest.
“We’re not the garbage, we’re taking out the garbage,” he told voters, countering Biden’s inflammatory insult of the former commander-in-chief. Ramaswamy’s garbage truck campaign call came on the same day as the Republican presidential hopeful’s similar “big beautiful” MAGA moment for a Wisconsin rally on Wednesday. He expressed that his independent idea of pulling off the same concept as Trump was a further testament to their motivation of “same love of the people of this country.”
Vivek Ramaswamy independently came up with his garbage truck moment
“And so that’s just one of many instances where you’ll see multiple leaders in our movement arrive at similar concepts in real-time at the same time,” he added.
The 39-year-old biotech entrepreneur also spoke of how the “organic, authentic and… spontaneous” reflects “a positive, pro-American hive mind.”
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It was the one-time presidential candidate’s first time riding in a garbage truck and he made the most of it by opening a dialogue with the driver Leo who also felt “personally insulted” by the sitting president’s insult.
“We don’t try to pretend like we’re something we’re not. You know, Trump arrived at his event on his private plane, and I arrived in mine,” Ramaswamy said. “I think that we just do whatever we need to do to get the job done. And it’s not that we’re trying to — I think it’s one thing if you’re saying you’re trying to pretend to be something that you’re not.”
Digging into the us vs them rhetoric, he further insisted that regardless of whether one is the owner of a private jet or the operator or driver of a dump truck, “We’re all equal as Americans, as fellow citizens. And I think that’s what our side sees versus the Democratic side.”
In light of the heavily rumoured speculations that the 81-year-old president’s re-election bid was upended by top Democratic leaders, Ramaswamy strategically argued that some members of the Biden family may be holding a grudge against Harris and thus acting against her. “I do think that there are almost certainly members of Biden’s family, maybe one has already been very close to him, that on a personal level would have some level of schadenfreude that they would enjoy experiencing after a couple areas loses this election because they feel like they were mistreated.”
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Biden stole the thunder from Harris with his “garbage” comment around the same time as her closing argument speech in Washington, D.C. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonisation of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American,” the commander-in-chief said in a campaign call responding to Hinchcliffe describing Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at Madison Square Garden last weekend.
As the White House attempted to clean up the mess, Harris reacted to Biden’s take on Wednesday: “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”