President Donald Trump appeared in the Rose Garden on Friday to deliver updates regarding the national health crisis in the United States that's left over 80 thousand Americans dead and millions more unemployed.
The President gave his usual false assurances that the country was ready to safely go back to normal, but there was a new sound accompanying the standard drivel: a cacophony of truck horns from protestors on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The protestors behind the horns were truckers calling attention to sub-par safety regulations and absurdly low freight rates in the face of the pandemic.
The truckers have been there for weeks protesting the current state of their industry, but Trump has assured no fewer than three times that they were there in support of him.
In an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, Trump said, "They're not protesters. They're supporters of me."
He reiterated the claims in the Rose Garden.
The President said:
"Those are friendly truckers. They're on our side. It's almost a celebration in a way."
The protestors weren't protesting against Trump specifically, but they definitely weren't protesting in support of him either. The protest was also far from a celebration. One accused him of "lying on national television."
CNN spoke with one of the protestors, Greg Anderson, who said:
"Mr. Trump elaborated that we were here to support him. Our message to him would be this is a protest against bad regulation, broker transparency, truck insurance, so on and so forth. This is not here to support Trump. We're here to get resolution and bring awareness to our problem and fix our problems."
Another protestor, Brian Brase, said:
"This is not a protest in support of Donald Trump or a rally for Trump. Not that we're against him by any means. Most of these guys here actually probably voted for him, honestly. But we've been let down by the administration, by [Transportation] Secretary Elaine Chao, by the [Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration]."
It probably isn't surprising that Trump made the protest about him.
People continued to fact check him.
We've long known that when it comes to truth and accuracy, Trump doesn't give a truck.
For a deeper look into Trump's ineptitude, check out A Very Stable Genius, available here.
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram