Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday swung his campaign away from the seven key swing states to hold an event in Albuquerque, New Mexico — a state where Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is thought to hold a clear edge.
“I’m here for one simple reason,” Trump said. “I like you very much, and it’s good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community.”
Those credentials likely could use some shoring up after comic Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s New York rally on Sunday.
Trump uses garbage truck stunt to trash Biden: At his New Mexico event, Trump continued to make hay out of President Joe Biden’s own “garbage” comment, which the White House insisted was not meant about all Trump supporters, just the hateful language used a couple of days earlier at Madison Square Garden. “My supporters are of far higher quality and I think much smarter than Crooked Joe or Lyin’ Kamala,” he said.
Trump, the former reality TV star, staged a made-for-TV stunt Wednesday in which he sat in a Trump-branded garbage truck in Green Bay, Wisconsin, wearing a reflective orange vest of the type sanitation workers might wear. He also donned the vest at a campaign rally in the evening.
But Trump provided Harris and other critics with some new fodder during that appearance, saying he will protect women, whether they “like it or not.”
“It actually is, I think, very offensive to women in terms of not understanding their agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies,” Harris told reporters in Madison, Wisconsin, before heading out west. “And this is just the latest in a series of reveals by the former president of how he thinks about women and their agency.”
A Trump campaign spokesperson told reporters that the media portrayal of Trump and his treatment of women is false. “Women deserve a President who will secure our nation’s borders, remove violent criminals from our neighborhoods, and build an economy that helps our families thrive — and that’s exactly what President Trump will do," Karoline Leavitt told NBC News.
Questions about Trump’s campaign strategy: Trump’s visit to New Mexico today and a planned stop Saturday in Virginia, also a reliably blue state, are raising some questions among political strategists — as did earlier events in Democratic strongholds like New York and California. “While Trump’s advisers and allies say they see advantages in these stops, including helping down-ballot Republicans and popping into geographically convenient places that might be more competitive than they seem, others see them as a risk they could come to regret,” The Washington Post’s Hannah Knowles and Marianne LeVine write.
Harris hits GOP on healthcare: In speaking with reporters, Harris also seized on the comments by House Speaker Mike Johnson that we told you about yesterday in which he indicated Republicans are eyeing a “massive reform” of the Affordable Care Act if Trump wins.
“Healthcare for all Americans is on the line in this election,” she said, warning that the gains in health insurance coverage made under the Affordable Care Act could be threatened and that insurance companies could go back to denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
