Does a widely shared video feature a man who drove "Trump's garbage truck"? No, that's not true: The video came from an account that labels its content as satire. The man seen in the footage is a stand-up comedian.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) on TikTok on October 31, 2024, under the caption:
He drove Trump's Garbage Truck.
In the video, a bearded man said:
I gotta say, it was an honor and a privilege to drive Garbage Force One.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Oct 31 19:58:07 2024 UTC)
The clip referenced Donald Trump's October 30, 2024, remarks, made from a garbage truck (archived here), in response to President Joe Biden's earlier garbage remark (archived here) that Trump interpreted as referring to his supporters. Biden's remark, in turn, was a response to comments by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who had compared (archived here) Puerto Rico with "a floating island of garbage" while speaking at Trump's October 27, 2024, Madison Square Garden rally in New York City.
The two-minute video seemed to show a garbage truck driver's authentic monologue, but that wasn't the case.
The video was first posted by the account of a comedian named Brent Terhune (archived here). The account's description (archived here) on TikTok clearly labeled his posts as "satire":
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Oct 31 19:59:10 2024 UTC)
In his June 12, 2020, Newsweek interview (archived here), Terhune acknowledged that some people think of his videos as being "so close" to what people in real life are like and said that "that's what satire is," interpreting it as "the mirror for society."
Additional Lead Stories fact checks that mention Donald Trump can be found here. Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about the 2024 U.S. presidential election are here.
