Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said his aides told him wearing a garbage vest made him "look thinner."
He made the comments at his Green Bay, Wisconsin, rally, where he was still wearing the fluorescent orange vest he wore hours earlier when he was filmed getting into a garbage truck.
The stunt was an apparent response to President Joe Biden appearing to call his supporters "garbage" earlier this week.
In his rally speech, Trump got a big laugh out of the crowd when he said his staff persuaded him to keep the jacket on, rather than wear the signature blue jacket he almost always wears with a red tie for public speeches.
LMAO: Trump hilariously tells the story of how he decided to wear his garbage uniform for the rally.
"I said 'NO WAY!' But they said, 'If you did, it actually makes you look thinner.' I said, 'Oh...' and they got me, when they said I look thinner."
"I may never wear a blue... pic.twitter.com/badtEf4UK1
"And then I got in the car and I'm driving over here, and I have this [the garbage jacket] still on and I come into the arena, and I say, 'Where's my jacket?'" Trump said.
"I want to get out of this thing. And they said it would be unbelievable if you could wear it on stage." At this point, the crowd erupted in cheers.
"And I said, 'No way. I got 25,000 people standing outside. I got all these people here. There's no way I'm wearing it on stage.' They said, 'Oh, OK, sir'. I said, 'Get me my jacket.' 'But if you did, you know, it actually makes you look thinner.' And they got me. I said, 'I want to wear it on stage.'"
"When they said I looked thinner, I said, 'In that case, I'll wear it on stage. I may never wear a blue jacket again. I may go, I may go in this.' They said that… that was the word, that was the key, 'Sir. You look thinner.'"
Newsweek has contacted Trump's campaign via email for comment.
The publicity stunt comes after widespread Republican outrage after Biden, in a Zoom call, appeared to call Trump supporters "garbage" in response to Tony Hinchcliffe's joke at a Sunday Trump rally where the comedian called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage."
The White House released a transcript of the Zoom call to claim that Biden was referring to Hinchcliffe's remarks as "garbage" and not Trump supporters.
"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter's—his—his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American," the transcript reads, placing an apostrophe in the word "supporters" to stress that the president was referring to the remarks being made by Trump supporters as garbage, not the supporters themselves.
Trump has declined to apologize for Hinchcliffe's original joke, which offended many Puerto Ricans, claiming he has "no idea" who Hinchcliffe is and that the joke was not a "big deal."
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