Donald Trump on Friday tried to energize his voters during a rally in Warren, Michigan, delivering an address replete with his characteristic fear-mongering about immigrants and tangents including musings about his hair.
The former president also repeated his aggressive attack on former Republican representative Liz Cheney, one day after he said she should be under fire with rifles “shooting at her”.
Trump repeatedly urged his supporters to hit the polls. “We have to get out and vote, everybody. Don’t take any chances,” he said.
Trump’s speech came as the presidential campaign enters its final stretch, with both the former president and his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, battling to woo voters in Michigan and other key swing states.
Harris was campaigning in Wisconsin on Friday, where she emphasized that she is looking to be a political consensus builder.
“Here is my pledge to you. Here is my pledge to you as president. I pledge to seek common ground and commonsense solutions to the challenges you face,” Harris said. “I pledge to listen to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make. I will listen to experts. I will listen to the people who disagree with me. Because, you see, unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy.”
“He wants to put them in jail,” Harris said, repeating a line she’s has frequently invoked of late. “I’ll give them a seat at the table.”
He asked voters whether they were better off than they were four years ago, and repeatedly stoked fears about immigrants, saying “every state is a border state” and falsely claiming immigrants are being flown into the south-west.
He repeated some of his most racist tropes, saying: “All of our jobs are are being taken by the migrants that come into our country illegally and many of those migrants happen to be criminals, and some of them happen to be murderers.”
There was time for reflection, too. “We’re gonna miss these rallies, aren’t we?” Trump asked the crowd at one juncture.
At another point, he remarked: “I’m studying my hair. It looks not so good today … not a good hair day for me, ay ay ay.”
Trump, while talking about various types of automobiles, spoke out against hydrogen cars, remarking: “The only thing we don’t want is a hydrogen car.”
“Can you imagine? You call the wife. ‘There’s your husband, in the tree. I don’t see him.’ The tree is bright red.”
Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck in swing state polling, and in Michigan, a Detroit Free Press survey shows her having a three-point lead.
Republicans and Democrats, as well as their unofficial boosters, have pounced on the tight split. Harris’s camp is pushing hard to convince young voters, who overwhelmingly support the Democrats, to go out and vote.
With mere days to go before the 5 November election, some Democrats in Michigan described being “freaked out” by the prospect of another Trump victory in this state. Biden won Michigan in 2020, but Trump defeated Hillary Clinton here in 2016. Relying on polls showing her far ahead, the Clinton campaign had prioritized campaigning in other states, neglecting key Democratic segments such as Black communities and auto workers in the state.
Harris has spent more time on the ground in Michigan than in any other state with the exception of Pennsylvania. Harris and her running-mate, Tim Walz, have bounced around the state in an effort to attract Black voters, white suburban women, college students and factory workers.
Last week, Barack Obama rapped with hip-hop legend Eminem at a rally in Detroit. Bernie Sanders, beloved by the Democratic left, tried to reassure young voters in the state that Harris is not just another corporate-minded Democrat.
Trump, too, has upped his efforts to woo Michigan voters. On Friday, the former president stopped in Dearborn to court Arab-American voters, many of whom have been left deeply disappointed by Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Many of the city’s Muslim leaders declined to meet with Trump, including Dearborn’s mayor, Abdullah H Hammoud.
“The architect of the Muslim Ban is making a campaign stop in Dearborn. People in this community know what Trump stands for – we suffered through it for years,” Hammoud, a Democrat, said on X. “I’ve refused a sit down with him although the requests keep pouring in. Trump will never be my president.”
Hammoud, who is neither supporting Harris nor Trump in the race for president, also called fellow members of his party. “To the Dems – your unwillingness to stop funding & enabling a genocide created the space for Trump to infiltrate our communities. Remember that.”
Meanwhile, Michigan residents have for months been bombarded by campaign ads, many of which feature exaggerated or blatantly false claims. With the state seeing $759m in political ad spending, Michigan ranks among the top for such disbursements in this election, per NPR.
At his rally on Friday evening, Trump tried to tie Harris to the most recent jobs report, which showed the US added just 12,000 jobs in October.
Trump also again attacked Liz Cheney, one day after he called the former Republican leader a “radical war hawk” in a conversation with Tucker Carlson and said she should face being under fire with rifles “shooting at her”.
“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face,” he said.
On Friday, Trump’s comments were similar.
“She’s tough one. But if you gave Liz Cheney a gun, put her into battle facing the other side with guns pointing at her. she wouldn’t have the courage or the strength or the stamina to even look the enemy in the eye,” Trump said.
“That’s why I broke up with her,” Trump commented, prompting some laughs.
