A garbage truck driver who Donald Trump said was a dead ringer for Cary Grant has spoken of his stunned reaction when he got the call to drive the former president to the car for an emergency photo.
“I didn’t really believe it at first until I picked up the phone and talked to the man myself,” said Andrew Brisson, the vice president of the family-owned trucking company LoadMaster in Detroit.
That call set off an extraordinary chain of events that saw Trump turn the tables on a comedian’s “offensive” nonsense comment about Puerto Rico — and deliver perhaps the first-ever presidential candidate press conference from a garbage truck.
Soon, Trump’s team of backers placed red, white and blue Trump MAGA labels on the side of the shiny truck, which Brisson selected from his fleet.
Andrew Brisson briefly rode with Donald Trump for his photo-op, where the former president threw out “garbage” comments and talked about what it was like to be in the cab
“And then, I think after a little conversation, he knew someone I knew within the industry in the area. “I went to our lot, found a nice garbage truck, got in it and headed to Green Bay,” he said. said Fox News.
He said it was a “spur of the moment” but he sort of felt like he was going to “drive Trump around.”
In elections with razor-thin margins, even small PR victories can make a difference, and Trump’s stunt allowed his team to change the subject from anger over a comedian’s comments about Puerto Rico during his rally at Madison Square Garden.
Trump’s speech at a rally that day, during which he wore a high-vis vest, was broadcast across the country. (The national uproar shifted Friday from the garbage dump to Trump’s dark comments about rival Liz Cheney pointing nine guns at her face).
When the moment finally arrived, Trump momentarily failed to grab the door handle of the vehicle and could have slipped, in an instant rivals were mocking him and questioning his health.
But he did come in and ended up answering questions from reporters.
But Trump wasn’t ready to end it yet.
Trump suffered a near skid during a photo op where Trump climbed into a garbage truck in a high-vis vest and trashed Joe Biden for his “garbage” comments
Trump spoke about the consequences of a fall, which he said would mean the end of his career
Trump compared the driver to Cary Grant
“Once they were all done, I started the truck. I blew the air horn and then he looked at me and said, can you take me for a ride in this thing? Yes, I can. And you know, I released the parking brake, put it in drive and started moving forward,” Brisson said. “I think, as Trump said, we only moved a few inches and then the Secret Service started glaring at me and waving their hands, and that was the end of it.”
Trump spoke at length about the moment at his campaign rally that evening, where he also talked about how difficult it was to get into the truck.
He compared Brisson to the late Hollywood actor Cary Grant. It was a comparison that went over the bearded Brisson’s head, he admitted. “No, I had no idea,” he said.