“We love Detroit,” former President Donald Trump told a crowd in Detroit on Friday night, a significant change in tone from the offensive comments he made about the city last week during a speech at the Detroit Economic Club.
Presidential campaigns are doing everything they can to get votes in various corners of Michigan, with almost daily campaign events in the state and constant appearances on the presidential ticket.
At his last event in Detroit on October 10, Trump said that if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected, “our entire country will be like Detroit if she becomes your president.”
Detroit leaders and Democrats hated being insulted because of Trump’s presence in the city.
“Detroit just hosted the largest NFL Draft in history, the Tigers are back in the playoffs, the Lions are headed to the Super Bowl, crime is down and our population is growing. Many cities should be like Detroit. And we did it all without Trump’s support,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a Democrat, wrote on social media a symphony of fellow Michiganders AND Harris.
But Trump supporters they lined up early on Friday to his rally in Detroit, holding aloft a “Make Detroit Great Again” sign in which he predicted the “revival” of a city that had to declare bankruptcy a decade ago.
I won’t pay the bill for this stupid company that rented this shit to us
“I am announcing to the people of this state that at the end of my term, the whole world will be talking about the miracle in Michigan and the stunning rebirth of Detroit, and it will be a true rebirth under the Trump administration,” Trump said. “All of you who have robbed, attacked, plundered and molested you will very quickly discover that America will no longer be exploited. We have been using it for years, for… decades. We promise that we will recover the stolen wealth and that Detroit’s economic glory days will return bigger and stronger than ever before.”
For the next five minutes, Trump was implementing his plan to cement Detroit’s position as the birthplace of the American auto industry by imposing tariffs on foreign automakers selling cars in the U.S. when his microphone cut off.
And then he started circling.
For about 18 minutes, Trump slowly moved to the back of the stage, his back to the huge majority of the crowd as they tried to break into chants in support of the former president. Detroit was Trump’s third stop of the day in Michigan, and he seemed visibly annoyed by the interruption of his speech.
After the audio function was restored, Trump spent the rest of the evening talking about his frustration with the microphone.
“I won’t pay the bill for that stupid company that rented us this crap,” Trump said. “I don’t like the microphone anyway. I didn’t like it from the first moment. … If this comes to light again, I will sue this company’s ass. We will sue them.”
Several cities and counties reports that Trump did it he left with the bill regarding events, some complaints date back to his 2016 presidential campaign.
U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), Michigan Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra, Trump executive Brian Pannebecker and Trump adviser Stephen Miller spoke at the event.
Trump shouted at several people in the crowd, including Michigan House Minority Leader Matt Hall (R-Twp.), who was tasked in November with fighting to regain the majority that Republicans lost to Democrats in 2022. Republican former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, US GOP Senate candidate spoke before Trump took the stage. However, Trump said he did not want to call him on stage again as he has in the past because he did not want him to exploit a “lousy microphone.” Rogers is in a tight race with Republican U.S. Elissa Slotkin (D-Hollty) for an open Senate seat.
Trump allowed rapper Trick Trick and notable boxer Thomas “Hitman” Hearns to take the stage with him to cheer on the Motor City crowd.
After guests were introduced to the stage, Trump said it was “boring” that he had to go back to talking about Harris, but he continued to do so.
But first Trump shouted, “Mr. Wall” dressed in a border wall suit and coming to rallies across the country. Trump estimated he saw “Mr. Wall” held at least 350 rallies during his presidential campaigns.
“I will defend religious freedom, your right to free speech and your right to keep and bear arms. We will do it,” Trump said. “After years of building other countries, we will protect our borders, defend our families, and protect our American suburbs like never before. We will end sanctuary cities and stop illegal immigration once and for all. We will put American citizens first.”
After sharply criticizing Detroit’s 2020 voting process and falsely claiming there was mass fraud in the state’s largest Black community, Trump on Friday encouraged supporters to get out and vote early: he spoke in the same building as election workers counted votes and his supporters were inundated.
The pro-early voting message is recent for Trump as the campaign aims to secure every possible vote in battleground states like Michigan. Trump’s Friday message especially reached out to women in the audience and asked them to tell their husbands to vote.
“Get your fat husband off the couch. “Get that fat pig off the couch, tell him to go and vote for Trump,” Trump said, drawing laughter from the crowd. “.. Hit him; pick it up; pick it up. … We want him to get off the couch and go vote. Bring your friends and take them out after everything we’ve been through together.
Both Trump and Harris have campaigned on Michigan’s economic recovery while taking different approaches when it comes to the state’s key auto industry.
Harris won the endorsement of the United Auto Workers Union, which last year took on the “Big Three” Detroit auto companies to fight for better contracts. On Friday, she rallied UAW workers at a union hall in Lansing, touting efforts by President Joe Biden’s administration to strengthen union pensions and financial support for factories switching to electric vehicles, like the one in Lansing.
Trump criticized the UAW, calling it a “sham” by offering a plan to get foreign-made vehicles out of the country, forcing Mexican and German manufacturers to set up shop in the U.S. to create more jobs.
“We want people to build factories in the United States, employ our people, that’s what we want, and if you do that, it’s a whole different story and ideally they’ll build it here in Detroit and we’ll make Detroit move and others will come too ” Trump said. “So vote for Trump and you will see a mass exodus of manufacturing workers from Mexico to Michigan, from Shanghai to Sterling Heights, and from Beijing to Detroit and other cities across America. Because a strong auto industry will enrich all of Detroit.”
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