Former President and current Republican nominee Donald Trump made a campaign stop Tuesday in Livingston County to deliver an address on public safety, but also veered into jobs and the economy and predicted the demise of the domestic auto industry if he loses the November election.
The Republican nominee is making a tour of battleground states as a counterpoint to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week.
Trump was flanked by Republican county sheriffs as he attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, as soft on crime and illegal immigration and not supportive of police.
“Over the past four years, the Marxist left has waged a vicious war on law enforcement in our country,” he said. “They’ve taken away the dignity and the spirit and the life of some of these police officers and you can see why you see the crime is so out of control in our country.”
Data from the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicate that violent crime is trending down after spiking earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump also accused prosecutors of targeting him. He was convicted earlier this year in New York of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
“They don’t arrest people anymore and they shouldn’t arrest people for saying the election was rigged, but they like that,” he said. “They go after guys like me, but they don’t go after people that kill people. It’s a shame what’s happened in our country.”
Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes said Trump’s misrepresenting his record on crime and public safety.
“His visit here to talk about safety is laughable — violent crime spiked under his watch, and he’s running on an extreme Project 2025 agenda that would defund law enforcement, abolish common-sense gun safety measures, and give Trump unchecked power,” she said in a statement released by the Michigan Democratic Party.
Trump also took aim at United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who delivered a blistering censure of the former president at the Democratic National Convention, and Trump blasted the auto industry’s move toward electric vehicles and Harris' support for the shift.
“Every auto worker here will be out of a job within three years if I’m not elected -- every auto worker in this state,” he said. “They’re all going to be made in China.”
Harris has said investing in EV production will keep vehicle supply chains based in the U.S.
