CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A day after President Joe Biden made history by joining a picket line with striking United Auto Workers members, former President Donald Trump is expected to address the labor dispute Wednesday from a nonunion auto parts factory.
A crowd of roughly 300 was on hand here for Trump’s remarks, scheduled for 8 p.m. ET, ahead of the second Republican primary debate that Trump, the GOP front-runner, is skipping.
The audience is a mix of workers from the host company, Drake Enterprises, and UAW members, area politicians and Trump fans with no deeply vested interest in the strike.
Hardly any striking workers are expected to be here.
“There are a few strikers here, yes,” said Brian Pannebecker, a former local autoworker who organizes an Auto Workers for Trump Facebook page and helped shore up attendees for the event. “I don’t know where they’re at. But there are several — a handful.”
One of the striking UAW members on hand, Scott Malefant, concurred.
“I haven’t seen anybody yet,” said Malefant, wearing a Make America Great Again ball cap as he waited for Trump to arrive, about 90 minutes after doors opened. “I’m sure there might be a few.”
Trump’s appearance in this suburb north of Detroit is packed with meaning for a presidential campaign that could very well be a rematch of 2020’s.
By avoiding another debate with the GOP candidates looking to snatch the nomination from him, Trump is signaling he is more focused on a general election battle against Biden. Michigan is part of the swath of industrial and Midwest states that swung to Trump in 2016 and to Biden four years later. And on a night his rivals will tangle at former President Ronald Reagan’s namesake library in California, Trump was smack dab in Macomb County, legendary in the 1980s for its concentration of fed-up blue-collar workers known as “Reagan Democrats.”
Trump won Macomb County in 2016 and 2020, but Biden narrowed the margin a bit, losing by fewer than 40,000 votes. Hillary Clinton lost to Trump by about 48,000 votes four years earlier. The area is a major hub of auto industry activity, from carmakers and parts suppliers to dealers.
Trump is expected to talk up his own accomplishments Wednesday while arguing that Biden’s policies and priorities, particularly with regard to electric vehicles, are dangerous for the industry.
The number of auto manufacturing jobs held relatively even through Trump’s administration. From January 2017 to February 2020, the U.S. auto and parts manufacturing industry added about 35,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Plants closed in places like Lordstown, Ohio; Warren, Michigan; and Baltimore.
“It’s obvious why Donald Trump is not at the Reagan Library tonight — he’s leading the Republican primary field by 40 points,” said Rich Luchette, a Democratic strategist. “But from a general election standpoint, Trump’s speech at a nonunion shop is a mistake. It will no doubt remind voters of Trump’s abysmal record on labor issues. Trump packed the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union appointees. Trump failed to bring back auto manufacturing jobs.”
Wednesday’s speech is being staged as a Trump rally in miniature, far smaller than the arena blowouts he was known for in his first two campaigns but with the same festive atmosphere — a food truck, the usual campaign playlist blaring over the speakers. And the crowd includes plenty of people who are here more for Trump than for the autoworkers. J.R. Majewski, a Trump-backing Republican who last year lost a congressional race in Toledo, Ohio — about 80 miles away — made the trip.
“I mean, I’ve seen him speak in person two or three times,” said Paul Sheridan, who came from nearby Bloomfield Hills to see Trump again. “And he’s always very good. And he speaks the truth. He’s funny. And so it’s always great to see him in person.”
Large throngs of Trump supporters and protesters marched near the industrial complex ahead of Trump’s arrival, waving signs and chanting. American Bridge 21st Century, a progressive super PAC, paid for a plane to circle the area with a banner reading “TRUMP SOLD US OUT.”
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Biden’s re-election campaign, meanwhile, revealed a new cable TV and digital ad Wednesday aimed at Michigan voters, specifically in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Lansing.
“He says he stands with autoworkers,” a narrator says of Trump. “But as president, Donald Trump passed tax breaks for his rich friends, while automakers shuttered their plants and Michigan lost manufacturing jobs.”
Biden, the ad asserts, “doesn’t just talk; he delivers.”
Sheridan and others acknowledged that Biden’s visit to the picket line Tuesday was a smart move.
“I’m not a big fan of him,” Malefant said. “But, you know, any support we can get, we’ll take it.
Asked whether Trump should have joined a picket line, Malefant countered that he “wouldn’t want to see the guy get booed or anything.”
“I think there’s always going to be a warmer welcome for Democrats when it comes to the unions,” he added. “I mean, a lot of people would boo Biden, but it’s not a popular thing with unions, so we kind of keep our mouths shut.”
Pannebecker, the organizer of the Facebook group, said Biden should not take sides in the dispute.
“I don’t think the president of the United States should be sticking his nose into contract negotiations between businesses, companies and workers,” he said. “President Trump’s here today to talk about what he accomplished during his first term and what he hopes to accomplish during his second term.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
