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Donald Trump was set to make two attention-grabbing announcements at his event in Michigan on Tuesday. But when all was said and done, the ex-president held off.
Trump spoke in Howell, Michigan flanked by members of law enforcement. His speech concentrated on crime, and he specifically hammered Vice President Kamala Harris over an imaginary surge in violent crime — despite the fact that violent crime is actually at its lowest national rate in decades.
The ex-president has sought to win over suburban voters by appealing to fears about crime and immigration. He made that explicitly clear on Tuesday as he opined to his supporters at the event that he thought polls showing women turning away from his campaign were “fake”.
But in his prepared remarks, Trump also planned to make two other unique appeals to voters, including his first foray into anti-transgender policy. A copy of his planned speech obtained by NOTUS revealed that Trump plans to propose making it a felony nationwide to provide gender-affirming care for minors without their parents’ or guardians’ consent, something which is already largely illegal except in a handful of states.
“To protect our children from sexual mutilation, we will make it a felony for any medical professional to perform surgery on a minor without parental consent,” Trump reportedly planned to say.
The second policy Trump originally was set to announce on Tuesday: a plan to seek the death penalty for persons found guilty of sexually abusing children. It’s an issue which has already been blocked by the Supreme Court on the grounds of preventing incommensurate sentences for crimes, but one that is a clear nod to the “groomer” panic that has overtaken parts of the right, particularly on social media. Major figures on the American right wing are accused of weaponizing that panic to smear and target LGBT Americans.
“I am announcing today that I will be asking for the DEATH PENALTY for child rapists and child traffickers,” read Trump’s planned remarks.
But neither of those above sentences made it into the live version of the ex-president’s speech in Howell. Instead, a source with knowledge of the change indicated that Trump is holding off on making those appeals to his base until after the Democratic convention ends. The reason? His campaign doesn’t want it to be lost in the tsunami of positive coverage that typically follows party conventions and which is currently playing out as the Democrats rally supporters in Chicago.
“President Trump is saving those additional formal announcements until after the DNC when he can make them on a special occasion. They’re too important to get lost in the shuffle of convention week,” a person with knowledge of the situation told The Independent.
The Independent has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
It’s the first apparent recognition by the former president that he can’t compete with the noise being generated by the DNC — and a sign that his bid to recapture momentum in the race will have to wait at least another week.
It comes as Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, are hosting a series of events across battleground states this week seemingly aimed at recapturing some of that attention.
Trump himself sounded somewhat hoarse and tired on Tuesday as he spoke in Michigan amid what is certainly the busiest week for his personal campaign schedule in months. The Trump campaign is hosting a number of smaller-venue events throughout the week, with the ex-president speaking each day. The week will be capped off by another economic-themed event attended by both Trump and Vance in Las Vegas.
The schedule itself may be aimed at refuting a point which has arisen since Biden dropped out of the race in July: the idea that Trump, at 78, is now by far the older candidate in the race, and therefore may also be unfit for office due to his age. Many of the Democrats who spent months battling concerns about Biden’s age are now happily raising those same arguments against the Republican ticket.
Trump’s campaign now finds itself in a tight spot. Harris, since entering the race in late July, has been at the center of a stunning rebound of Democratic enthusiasm which has manifested in national and swing state polling, as well as a surge in donations and volunteer support in swing states around the country.
Harris’s campaign announced on Tuesday that it had raised more than a half billion dollars since she entered the race just under one month ago. Trump, by comparison, raised less than a quarter million in July — less than Kamala Harris raised in one week after she entered the race as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
