In Freeland, Trump celebrates the fall of Roe v. Wade, promises mass deportations if he’s elected

After flying into Freeland, former President Donald Trump drew a large crowd of supporters as he continued criticism of President Joe Biden’s economic policies while promising mass deportations on day one if elected in November.

A number of prominent Michigan Republicans rallied in support of Trump ahead of his speech on Wednesday in Saginaw County. Michigan House Minority Leader Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp.), Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt (R-Porter Twp.) and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake), who’s running for U.S. Senate, blasted Democrats on the economy, crime and immigration policy. 

Trump urged his supporters to vote for Rogers over U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) in the upcoming U.S. Senate race. 

“Mike Rogers will vote to secure our borders, crackdown on sanctuary cities, support our police and stop the crime that is ravaging your communities and ravaging our country. He’ll vote to block the Biden tax hikes, he’ll allow nothing to happen bad to our country,” Trump said. 

Trump leaves door open to banning medication abortion nationwide

Both Rogers and Slotkin would have to win their respective primaries on Aug. 6 first. Slotkin faces actor Hill Harper and businessman Nasser Beydoun, while Rogers is running against former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (I-Cascade Twp.), physician Sherry O’Donnell and businessman Sandy Pensler. 

Michigan Republican Party Chair Pete Hoekstra and Republican former gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon also spoke in support of the former president, who last traveled to Michigan in April for a press conference in Grand Rapids blasting Biden over immigration.

In his speech, Trump celebrated the fall of Roe v. Wade, arguing that Democrats will allow abortion in the seventh, eighth and ninth month of pregnancy and after birth, calling it an “execution.” 

A report from Politifact on similar claims by the former president called them “grossly inaccurate,” noting that wilfully ending a newborn’s life is illegal in every state. It also noted that abortions after 21 weeks of pregnancy make up 1% of abortions in the U.S. and are often tied to severe anomalies in the fetus or risks to the mother’s health.

Ahead of Trump’s appearance on Wednesday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer criticized him for his role in overturning Roe v. Wade during a roundtable discussion on the consequence of the Supreme Court Decision.

Trump also condemned Biden’s economic agenda, while touting his own tax policy. 

Republicans have blasted Biden’s plan to raise taxes on businesses and wealthy Americans, and argued that Biden will allow Trump-era tax cuts to expire, while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said he would negotiate with Congress on how to proceed when the policies do expire, according to a report from the New York Times.

While Yellen argued these tax increases wouldn’t touch the middle class, Republicans argued that consumers and employees would bear the brunt of a higher corporate tax rate. In response Trump promised a tax cut for the middle class. 

“I will deliver a Trump middle class tax cut the likes of which you’ve never seen. ….On day one, we will throw out Bidenomics and we will reinstate a thing called MAGAnomics,” Trump said, referencing his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) which was originally used in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign.

Trump also denounced the Biden administration’s goal for electric vehicles to make up 50% of all new vehicles sold by 2030, which Trump called a mandate. He criticized Biden and UAW President Shawn Fain for the effort, saying a transition to electric vehicles would result in the loss of U.S. auto jobs to China. 

“It will be an economic bloodbath. Crooked Joe will rip out your auto jobs and send them immediately to China,” Trump said.

The Biden campaign responded to these criticisms in a statement, pointing to a report from the Atlas Public Policy Institute’s EV Hub, which found vehicle and battery manufacturers are expected to invest $860 billion globally by 2030, with $210 billion expected in the U.S. 

“Donald Trump didn’t deliver a thing for once again, Trump is lying about President Biden’s policies instead of owning up to his own record of ceding the EV race and jobs of the future to China, giving tax handouts to billionaires at the expense of Michigan working families, and incentivizing companies to ship Michigan jobs overseas,” the campaign’s Michigan communications director, Alyssa Bradley, said in a statement.

“President Biden is keeping Michigan at the forefront of the auto industry while helping to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the Great Lakes State. Trump wants to drag us backwards,” Bradley said. 

Trump also attacked transgender Americans and blasted the many legal cases against him, calling them “bulls–t” and falsely claiming Al Capone had faced less indictments.

Trump has been charged in a number of cases including mishandling top secret documents, attempting to overturn the 2020 election, as well as anti-racketeering charges in Georgia.

Last week, Trump was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Michigan fake electors plot, one of sevens states where groups submitted false documents claiming Trump had won the election. Another 18 individuals were charged in Arizona as part of the plot, with the Arizona Mirror identifying Trump as one of the seven individuals whose names were redacted by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. 

Trump was also recently fined $9,000 for nine violations of a gag order tied to his hush-money case, in which he is accused of disguising payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign to conceal an alleged affair.

During his speech, he continued to spread disproven claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and said his campaign would be working with the Republican National Committee to “ensure what happened in 2020 will never happen again.”

Trump also continued to stoke fears about crime and the crisis at the southern border, referencing a number of break ins which Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said are tied to Chilean gangs, and promising to shift large portions of federal law enforcement into immigration enforcement. He also accused migrants of being traffickers, drug dealers and said other countries were emptying their prisons and mental health facilities into the United States. 

“On day one, we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in America,” Trump said.

Research from Stanford University has found that first-generation immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than individuals born in the U.S. An investigation from the Marshall Project also found no link between undocumented immigrants and increases in crime.

He said he would settle the war between Russia and Ukraine, questioning why Europe was not providing more aid to the Ukrainian military. 

Since the beginning of the war the European Union (EU) has provided close to $107 billion in financial, military, humanitarian and refugee assistance, according to a statement from the EU Delegation to the United States. 

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the U.S has provided more than $71 billion in aid to Ukraine. Biden also recently signed off on a $95 billion aid package, which includes about $61 billion for Ukraine.