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Donald Trump’s Motor City slur invites bitter backlash as Barack Obama champions Kamala Harris at Pittsburgh rally with devastating attack on the Republican’s character and record
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Donald Trump disparaged the entire city of Detroit, Michigan, on Thursday warning that the whole country could end up “a mess” like the Motor City if his Democratic rival Kamala Harris wins November’s election, a pitch unlikely to endear him to local voters that has already inspired a major backlash.
Former president Barack Obama meanwhile delivered an impassioned speech denouncing the Republican’s character and mocking his “constant attempts to sell you stuff”, from gold sneakers to branded Bibles, during a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, championing Harris’s bid for the presidency.
Obama portrayed his White House successor as a callous, unprincipled and irresponsible man preoccupied with his own grievances and unfit to serve, also issuing a stern appeal to Black men to support the Vice President.
The 44th president’s speech is his first stop on a tour of battleground states stumping for Harris.
Bill Clinton is also expected to speak for her in rural Georgia next week.
Harris currently leads Trump by four points in the latest Economist/YouGov poll and appears to have pulled ahead with suburban voters, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos survey – although one analyst says the Republican’s odds of winning have inexplicably surged.
Trump’s contention that “the whole country will end up being like Detroit” and become “a mess” if the Vice President wins November’s election has, not surprisingly, not gone down at all well with Democrats or local officials.
Speaking in Vegas, Kamala hit back by saying: “I’ve had a good time meeting with the Culinary Union members, who of course are part of the backbone of this great city.
“I guess by contrast my opponent Donald Trump yet again has trashed another great American city when he was in Detroit, which is just a further piece of evidence on a very long list of why he is unfit to be President of the United States.”
Also incensed was Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who posted on X: “Detroit just hosted the largest NFL Draft in history, the Tigers are back in the playoffs, the Lions are headed to the Super Bowl, crime is down and our population is growing.”
Not finished there, he recorded a video for Instagram in which he declared: “Since Donald Trump left office, the unemployment rate in Detroit is way down, the homicide rate is way down, and our population is growing for the first time since the 1950s.
“In fact, the best thing that happened to Detroit was when Donald Trump left office and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris came in and gave us real partners.”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer also chimed in with: “Detroit is the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities – something Donald Trump could never understand.”
Kamala Harris herself took part in a town hall event in Las Vegas, Nevada, hosted by the Spanish-language network Univision as she sought to press home her advantage with that demographic, which she currently leads Trump on by 54 per cent to 40 per cent, according to an NBC News, Telemundo and CNBC poll published last month.
The Vice President wasted no time in trashing Trump for “playing political games” by lying about the federal response to Hurricane Helene and over his claim that he would be a dictator “on day one”.
“Do we support a democracy and the Constitution of the United States, or are we going to go on the path of somebody who is a sore loser and lost the election in 2020 and tried to have a violent mob undo it?” she asked viewers.
She did particularly well taking questions from the studio audience, comforting a woman moved to tears by the plight of her late mother and another describing her ordeal at the hands of long Covid, also putting to bed a concern about whether Joe Biden was pressured to drop out of the race in July to make way for her candidacy.
Invited by one person to name “three virtues” she feels Trump has, Harris responded carefully: “I think Donald Trump loves his family and I think that’s very important.
“I think family is one of the most important things we can prioritize. I don’t really know him to be honest with you, I only met him one time on the debate stage.”
Just hours earlier, Trump had disparaged the entire city of Detroit, Michigan, warning that the whole country could end up like the Motor City if his Democratic rival wins on November 5, a pitch unlikely to endear him to local voters.
More bizarrely, he managed to turn a question about his parenting style into an eight-minute rant about drugs that ended with him explaining why some people convicted of fentanyl-related crimes should face the death penalty.
Other “highlights” from his visit to the Detroit Economic Club included his raving about self-driving cars, declaring that California is “stone cold broke” and without electricity and griping about not winning a Nobel Prize, which I’m sure is a disappointment at the forefront of the minds of most Americans struggling with the cost of living and looking for a brighter vision for their country’s future.
Katie Hawkinson has more.
Trump explained why fentanyl-related offenses should receive the death penalty when asked about his kids
Good morning!
Former president Barack Obama delivered an impassioned speech denouncing Donald Trump’s character and mocking his “constant attempts to sell you stuff”, from gold sneakers to branded Bibles, during a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Thursday as he championed Kamala Harris’s bid for the presidency.
Obama portrayed his White House successor as a callous, unprincipled and irresponsible man preoccupied with his own grievances and unfit to serve.
The 44th president’s speech is his first stop on a tour of battleground states stumping for Harris.
Bill Clinton is also expected to speak for her in rural Georgia next week.
Here’s a full report from Andrew Feinberg.
The former president slammed the ‘78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago’ as he stumped for Kamala Harris and Senator Bob Casey in Pittsburgh
Republicans have filed a flurry of lawsuits in battleground states to target ballots cast by American voters living abroad — including military service members.
Critics warn the move is designed to cast doubt on the legitimacy of 2024’s forthcoming presidential election.
Alex Woodward reports.
GOP members of Congress and the RNC are suing to stop states from counting ballots from voters overseas
Social media users have trolled JD Vance for claiming he “never” praises Barack Obama — despite a glowing op-ed about the former president seven years ago.
Kelly Rissman has the story.
‘The president’s example offered something no other public figure could: hope,’ the GOP Senator wrote in a New York Times op-ed
During a Univision town hall on Thursday evening, Vice President Kamala Harris directly appealed to Latino voters – the voting population she is struggling to connect with this election cycle– by warning them Donald Trump would be a dictator “on day one.”
“Many people come from backgrounds and countries of origin, and we know what that means when you’re talking about someone who wants to be president of the United States and wants to be a dictator, and what that means in terms of taking freedoms from their people,” Harris said.
“Do we support a democracy and the Constitution of the United States, or are we going to go on the path of somebody who is a sore loser and lost the election in 2020 and tried to have a violent mob undo it?” She posed.
Democrats risk losing control of the Senate this fall as new polling in a handful of crucial races shows Republicans in strong single-digit leads less than four weeks before Election Day.
Alex Woodward looks at the numbers.
Republicans are leading in senate races in Montana, Florida and Texas
As he took the stage during a town hall at the Koury Convention Center, the image of JD Vance the civil statesman slowly began to peel off and he reassumed his image as Trump’s attack dog.
For example, Vance was asked about deportations and Trump’s lie that 13,000 murderers crossed the US-Mexico border during the Biden administration. In response, he used immigration as a wedge between Wester North Carolinians who are reeling from the effects of Helene and migrants.
“And if the message that our country sends after 25 million illegal aliens coming into this country is you get to stay here, you get to collect housing benefits, you get to collect welfare benefits, while folks in western North Carolina are struggling to survive, we will never have a border in this country again,” he said.
The Trump campaign and his allies have repeatedly spread lies that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was assisting immigrants with money meant for disaster relief, a claim that has been repeatedly debunked and that President Joe Biden has pushed back on.
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Former president Barack Obama lambasted Donald Trump for spreading misinformation and attacking immigrants during a campaign stop for Harris in Pittsburgh
Reuters
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