By james art 
Trump returns to Arizona for rally with Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr.
Former President Donald Trump draws the faithful at a rally with Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Glendale on Oct. 31, 2024.
Before this week, Marty Sell’s favorite trick for Donald Trump during the presidential election was to work at McDonald’s.
Then President Joe Biden misstepped by calling Trump supporters “trash” in response to a similar comment made by a comedian about Puerto Rico at a Trump rally last weekend. The White House later clarified that the statement was a reference to the comedian’s rhetoric, not to Trump supporters.
That didn’t stop the former president from addressing the gaffe by donning a garbageman’s vest and climbing into a garbage truck to speak to the media at a campaign event earlier this week.
It was a “sweet” move, Sehl said. Knowing he would be attending Trump’s rally in Glendale on Thursday, he decided to find vests for himself and his friends.
At least 20 vests were visible inside the Desert Diamond Arena at 5:15 p.m. Other attendees donned trash bags as clothing.
“I wasn’t the only one who thought of that,” Sell said with a laugh as he noticed others also wearing vests or trash bags. “Pretty cool.”
Just days before the Nov. 5 general election, at a time when both campaigns are vying for voters’ attention, Biden’s remark gave the Trump campaign an opportunity to portray Biden and Democrats as at odds with or contemptuous of Trump’s base.
Nicole Shanahan, who served as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vice president before he ended his independent run for president, referenced the remark at Trump’s Thursday night rally in Glendale. She compared it to then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s 2016 remark that half of Trump’s supporters belonged to the “misery basket.”
“No one in this room or in this country is worthy of pity. Nobody is trash in this room,” Shanahan said to thunderous applause. “And it’s wrong for the president of the United States to divide this country as he has.”
Biden’s gaffe softened the fallout from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke at a Trump rally earlier this week that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of trash.” It was part of a longer line of crude and dismissive jokes Hinchcliffe told that also poked fun at Latinos, black voters and the conflict in the Middle East.
The comment from Puerto Rico drew pushback from several Republican lawmakers and Democrats. A Trump campaign spokesman said the joke “does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
Trump often uses disparaging or inflammatory language to talk about his own political opponents. He began calling Democratic leaders “scum” and the “enemy within,” saying he would be willing to use the National Guard or the military if “radical left-wing lunatics” were a problem on Election Day.
Sell said he was struck by Biden’s comment because “he basically said to 50% of the people, ‘You’re trash because you don’t support me.’ This is a problem in a democracy.”
Asked if he was offended by Hinchcliffe’s joke, Sell said it wasn’t appropriate either.
“But two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said. “And one is my president, the other is the comedian. Big difference.”
“I guess we’re scavengers,” said Lori Di Giambattista, another rally-goer who wore a scavenger vest with her husband, Tom Di Giambattista. “You’re going to see a lot of them.”
Michael McBride and Christy McBride of Surprise wore black garbage bags over their clothes with the words “MAGA GARBAGE” in red letters. “KISS MY TRASH” was written on the back of Christy McBride’s trash bag.
“Apparently there was a person in the White House who called us trash. I think that’s what he called us. So here we are,” said Michael McBride.