Trump focuses on southern border in pitch to Michigan workers
Waterford Township — Former President Donald Trump used a speech in Michigan Saturday night to repeatedly criticize the flow of migrants across the southern border, labeling the situation as the "biggest threat" to union workers.
Trump's remarks at a rally inside a crowded airport hangar in Oakland County — his first campaign stop in the state of the 2024 election year — pointed to the increased role the issue of immigration could play in the presidential campaign.
"The biggest threat to your union is millions of people coming across the border," Trump said at one point, after mentioning both the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters. "You’re not going to have your jobs anymore.”
The Republican presidential candidate argued migrant workers would take jobs away from people who currently hold them in the U.S because migrants "are going to work for nothing."
"They’re going to work for very small amounts of money," Trump added. "You’re going to lose your jobs."
Trump also tied crimes committed by migrants directly to Democratic President Joe Biden, labeling it "Bigrant crime."
"We are going to have the largest deportation effort in the history of our country," Trump told the crowd. "We have no choice.”
Biden has drawn criticism in recent weeks from Republicans for not taking action to safeguard the U.S.-Mexico border amid a jump in crossings. But Democrats have also blasted GOP lawmakers and Trump for opposing bipartisan legislation aimed at securing the border.
"What’s been negotiated would — if passed into law — be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country," Biden said in January.
Trump's appearance in Michigan came 10 days before the Feb. 27 presidential primary election. The former president, who has spent years criticizing absentee voting in Michigan, on Saturday night urged supporters to cast early votes in person ahead of the primary.
Municipalities across Michigan on Saturday started offering early, in-person voting for the first time after voters mandated it in a 2022 constitutional amendment.
"You can do that or you can wait a little bit," Trump said of early voting at the outset of a speech inside a hangar at Oakland County International Airport in Waterford Township.
Trump is favored to defeat former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in Michigan's Feb. 27 presidential primary and subsequent caucuses on March 2, but the former president urged supporters to turn out and vote.
“We don’t have much of a primary here,” Trump said.
But Trump added that he wanted to send Democrats "a message" by winning big in his Republican primary race against Haley, who served as Trump's ambassador to the United Nations.
"We have to let them know that a freight train is coming in November,” Trump said, later adding, "If we win Michigan, we win the election."
More:How voting in Michigan elections is about to change — again
Trump said he's focused on the general election and likely rematch with Biden, who defeated him in 2020. Trump has repeatedly blamed absentee votes cast by mail or in-person at city clerks offices for his loss, while making dubious claims of election fraud.
"But we want to win Nov. 5 — get this guy out," Trump said.
Early in-person voting could provide a path for Republicans to lock in votes ahead of Election Day without using absentee ballots, about which Trump himself has spurred deep concerns within the GOP.
"Mail-in voting is totally corrupt," Trump said of absentee ballots, which can be cast either by mail or in a clerk's office.
In a statement ahead of Trump's speech, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat and a supporter of Biden, said her state was better off because of Biden's time in the White House. Biden had pushed to bring jobs back from overseas and cut taxes for workers, Whitmer said.
"Donald Trump creates division everywhere he goes, but we’ve come together to make our state more welcoming and more prosperous," the second-term governor said. "Michigan didn’t buy what Donald Trump was selling in 2020 and we won’t in 2024.”
Hundreds of Trump supporters gathered Saturday afternoon to hear the former president speak at 7 p.m. amid temperatures in the low 20s and a bitter wind chill that made it feel like 7 degrees Fahrenheit.
Trump used the first half of his speech, which lasted more than an hour, to attack a New York judge who ruled Friday that the longtime real estate developer has to pay $355 million in fees for lying about his wealth for years in a scheme that duped banks and insurers.
"He's a crooked judge," Trump said
Trump decried the ruling, vowing to end what he called a "weaponization of this horrible legal system that's developed around us."
"This is a real threat to democracy," Trump claimed.
He later added: "We haven't done anything wrong."
Trump's claim of innocence comes amid numerous legal troubles, both civil and criminal, including his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and handling of classified records after leaving office.
Last month, a jury in New York ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million in additional damages to advice columnist E. Jean Carroll for damaging her reputation after she accused him of sexual assault. Another jury awarded Carroll $5 million for claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store in 1996.
More:Inside Donald Trump’s ouster of Michigan's Ronna McDaniel as RNC chair
Before the rally, attendees inside the airport hangar were being offered hot chocolate and hand warmers. The venue was open to the outdoors on one side.
Dave Brady, 60, drove from Trenton to attend the rally 10 days before Michigan’s presidential primary.
Brady, a diesel mechanic by trade, said the wide majority of his neighbors were planning to vote for Trump in a likely rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden in November.
“I like his no-nonsense approach,” Brady said of Trump.
Former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, whom the Republican National Committee is recognizing as chairman of the Michigan GOP, said Trump is at a positive place in the state.
“It’s the grocery bill, stupid,” Hoekstra said before Trump's speech, echoing the legendary line “it’s the economy stupid" coined by Democratic strategist James Carville in Bill Clinton's 1992 election as president.
Throughout his speech, Trump referenced Hoekstra, calling out "Pete," whom he has supported over Kristina Karamo in a power struggle for control of the Michigan Republican Party.
“I thought it was going to be like freezing in here, Pete,” Trump said of the venue. “It’s very nice. It’s beautiful.”
More:More Michigan Republican Party drama brewing as presidential primary nears
cmauger@detroitnews.com
clivengood@detroitnews.com