A pair of Chevrolet Silverado heavy-duty pickups took center stage on the White House lawn yesterday as part of a theatrical ploy to show off the “burden of regulations,” per CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller. Knoller tweeted out a photo of the blue and red Chevy trucks, the former of which carried proverbial—and, well, literal—regulatory weights in its bed.
Where the White House sourced the trucks remains a mystery. MotorTrend reached out to both General Motors and the Office of Management and Budget for clarification to determine if the trucks were supplied by the manufacturer. However, we have yet to receive a concrete answer from either GM or the OMB.
Our colleagues at Jalopnik, though, received word from a GM spokesperson that the company was not “aware of the event beforehand but looks like [the White House] chose a great truck.” While that response frees GM from actively participating in the planned event itself, it neither confirms nor denies the automaker’s involvement in supplying the pickups to the White House.
Whether the White House “chose a great truck” to use in this stunt is a different matter entirely. Brand aside, we’d argue the Administration’s decision to use heavy-duty full-size pickups, as opposed to light-duty full-size trucks, only downplayed the optical “burden of regulations” it sought to exemplify. Credit the stiff rear springs of the Silverado HD, which held the truck’s rear-end high in spite of the additional weight in its bed.
How the Trump Administration procured the two Chevrolet pickups for its latest bit of political theater remains under wraps for now. Regardless, it seems that even if GM did loan the trucks to the White House, the company was unaware the vehicles would be used in this manner.