Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Detroit on Oct. 18, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)
“We love Detroit,” former President Donald Trump told a crowd in Detroit Friday night, a significant tone shift from the derogatory comments he made last week about the city while speaking at the Detroit Economic Club.
Presidential campaigns are pulling out all the stops to attain votes from different corners of Michigan, with near-daily campaign events in the state and frequent appearances by the presidential tickets.
Trump said at his last Detroit event on Oct. 10 that if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected, “Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president.”
Detroit leaders and Democrats didn’t take kindly to being insulted why Trump was in town.
“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. Lots of cities should be like Detroit. And we did it all without Trump’s help,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a Democrat, posted on social media, as did a symphony of other Michiganders and Harris.
But Trump supporters lined up early Friday for his Detroit rally, holding up “Make Detroit Great Again Signs” up high as he predicted a “revival” for the city that a decade ago had to declare bankruptcy.
An attendee holds up a “make Detroit Great Again” sign as former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Detroit on Oct. 18, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)
“I am proclaiming to the people of this state that by the end of my term the entire world will be talking about the Michigan miracle and the stunning rebirth of Detroit and this will be a real rebirth under the Trump administration,” Trump said. “All who have robbed you, raided you, ransacked you and abused you will discover very quickly America will not be taken advantage of anymore. We were taking advantage of for years for … decades. We will reclaim our stolen wealth and the days of Detroit’s economic glory will return greater and stronger than ever before, promise.”
For the next five minutes, Trump was building up to his plans to affirm Detroit’s position as the birthplace of the American auto industry by installing tariffs on foreign automakers selling cars in the U.S. when his microphone went out.
And then he started pacing.
For about 18 minutes, Trump slowly moved near the back of the stage, with his back to the vast majority of the crowd while they attempted to start chants in support of the former president. Detroit was Trump’s third stop of the day in Michigan and he appeared visibly exasperated at the halt to his speech.
Once audio capabilities were restored, Trump throughout the rest of the night would harken back to his frustrations with the microphone.
“I won’t pay the bill for this stupid company that rented us this crap,” Trump said. “I don’t like the mic anyway. I didn’t like it from the minute I started. … If it goes out again I’ll sue the ass off that company. We’re gonna sue ‘em.”
Several cities and counties report that Trump has walked out on the bill for events, some complaints dating back to his 2016 presidential campaign.
U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), Michigan GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra, Auto Workers for Trump head Brian Pannebecker and Trump adviser Stephen Miller all spoke at the event.
Trump shouted out several people in the crowd including Michigan House Minority Leader Matt Hall (R- Twp.), who’s tasked in November with fighting to regain the majority Republicans lost to Democrats in 2022. Republican former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, the GOP U.S. Senate nominee, spoke before Trump came on stage. But Trump said he didn’t want to call him up to the stage again like he has done in the past because he didn’t want him to use the “crappy microphone.” Rogers is in a tight race with U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Hollty) for the open Senate seat.
Trump did allow rapper Trick Trick and boxing hall of famer Thomas “Hitman” Hearns to come on stage with him to cheer on the Motor City crowd.
After bringing his guests on stage, Trump said it was “boring” that he would have to shift back to talking about Harris, but he continued to do so.
But first Trump shouted out “Mr. Wall” dressed up in a border wall suit and comes to rallies around the country. Trump estimated that he’s seen “Mr. Wall” at at least 350 rallies across his presidential campaigns.
“I will defend religious liberty, your right to free speech and the right to keep and bear arms. We will do that,” Trump said. “After years and years of building up other countries we will protect our borders to defend our families and protect our American suburb cities and towns like never before. We will end Sanctuary cities and we will stop illegal immigration once and for all. We will put American citizens first.”
After he had slammed Detroit’s voting processes in 2020 and falsely claimed mass fraud in the state’s largest Black community, Trump on Friday encouraged supporters to go out and vote early, speaking in the same building his supporters flooded as election workers were tallying votes.
The message in support of early voting is new for Trump, as the campaign attempts to secure every possible vote in battleground states like Michigan. Trump’s message on Friday reached out in particular to the women in the audience — asking 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 to the laughter of the crowd. “.. Slap him around; get him up; get him up. … We want him off the couch to get out and vote. Bring your friends and get them out after all we have been through together.”
Trump and Harris have both campaigned on economic revival in Michigan, while taking different approaches when talking about the state’s crucial auto industry.
Harris has been endorsed by the United Auto Workers Union, which took on Detroit’s “Big Three” auto manufacturing companies last year, striking for better contracts. On Friday, she rallied UAW workers in a Lansing union hall, touting the President Joe Biden administration’s efforts to shore up union pensions and its financial support for plants to transition to electric vehicles, like one in Lansing.
Trump has railed against the UAW, which calls him a “scab,” offering up a plan to try and price foreign-made vehicles out of the country, pushing Mexican and German manufacturers to set up shop in the U.S. to create more jobs.
“We want people to build plants 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 right here in Detroit and we’ll get Detroit moving and others will come also,” Trump said. “So vote Trump and you will see a mass exodus of manufacturing jobs from Mexico to Michigan, from Shanghai to Sterling Heights and from Beijing to right here in Detroit and other cities all across America. Because a strong auto industry will make all of Detroit richer.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.