President Trump told a crowd of supporters in Michigan on Monday that the affordability problems they were experiencing were vestiges of the Biden administration, and spent the better part of an hourlong speech painting a dystopian picture of what the United States could look like if Democrats won competitive elections this fall.
“We had the single greatest year we’ve ever had as a country,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re not going to let these people destroy it.” The president added that “in 18 months, we’ve turned this country completely around.”
The president also assured supporters that negotiations over ending the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, a conflict that has sent fuel and energy prices soaring, were continuing in a “friendly” fashion. Iran has not confirmed such talks with the United States.
Mr. Trump’s decision to head to Michigan, a purple Midwestern state that has been economically pummeled by his tariff policies, is part of a plan to travel the United States and defend his choices as the midterm elections draw closer. The president’s advisers say he will be ramping up such trips over the next few months.
Visiting a General Motors proving facility in Milford, where vehicles are pressure-tested before they hit the market, Mr. Trump accepted some gifts (car sculptures) and road-tested his latest insult for the Democratic Party — “Dumocrats” or “Dumbocrats”; he is apparently still mulling the spelling — as he attacked several presidential predecessors. And, aside from a moment when people waving signs that said “STOP DATA CENTERS” interrupted Mr. Trump’s speech, the crowd cheered along.
Before he spoke, Mr. Trump watched a crew of professional drivers drag-race several luxury vehicles, including a race between a black 2027 Corvette ZR1X, a car that starts at $227,000, and a silver Corvette ZR1 convertible, which costs around $207,195. Later, he told hundreds of supporters, many of them dressed in Trump regalia, that the economic pressures they were experiencing were problems inherited from the Biden administration.
“I’m one day in office, and the fake news goes ‘affordability, affordability,’” he complained.
Part of Milford is in Michigan’s Seventh Congressional District, where Representative Tom Barrett is fighting to hold onto a seat he narrowly won in 2024. Mr. Barrett, an Army veteran, was already one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House. He has twice broken with his party and voted to rein in the president’s war powers, which appeared to have earned Mr. Barrett a smattering of boos when he took the stage earlier.
Later, speaking in front of Mr. Trump, Mr. Barrett praised the president’s policies and said he was “stepping up every single day to make sure that we bring more manufacturing jobs back to America.”
Other candidates who took the mic included Mike Rogers, a former Republican congressman running for a Senate seat this fall. Mr. Rogers told the president that if he wins, he would work to pass the SAVE Act, which would require voters to prove their citizenship, ban IDs without a photo at polling places and severely restrict voting by mail. Democrats have argued that the legislation would make it more difficult for eligible voters to make it to the polls.
And Representative John James, a Republican candidate in the state’s competitive race for governor, opened his remarks by repeating election falsehoods.
“Thank you, Mr. President, for coming back to Michigan, where you’ve won three times,” Mr. James said. (Mr. Trump won the state in 2016 and 2024, but not in 2020.)
Michigan has been among the states hardest hit by tariffs because of the impact on automakers, a pillar of the economy. Tariffs have siphoned off money they could be using to invest in new car designs and new technologies. Mr. Trump promised that General Motors would soon see major benefits.
“It’s amazing what tariffs will do for General Motors,” Mr. Trump said before his speech as he toured a garage full of Corvettes and Cadillacs, stopping at one point to sign the hood of a white Corvette.
“The rest of the world doesn’t love me, but that’s OK,” Mr. Trump added — a reference, perhaps, to the escalating trade war he is waging with Canada. “It’s called America First.”
General Motors expects tariffs to cost it as much as $3.5 billion this year, the company said in a regulatory filing this month. Ford and Stellantis, the maker of Jeep and Chrysler vehicles, have estimated tariffs will cost them more than $1 billion, though some of the impact will be offset by refunds they receive after the Supreme Court ruled that some of Mr. Trump’s levies were illegal.
“Tariffs increased the price of raw materials, raised production costs and restricted market access for our products,” Gretchen Whitmer, the state’s Democratic governor, said in April. “Some companies absorbed the costs, but many passed them along through higher prices, reduced investment or slower hiring.”
The cost to Michigan families amounts to $1,000 per year, according to a study Ms. Whitmer commissioned. Trade wars also hurt Michigan farmers after China and other countries retaliated by imposing tariffs on products like milk and soybeans, she said.
At one point, Mr. Trump told the crowd that former President Barack Obama was “so bad for the auto industry,” even though the Obama administration’s 2009 package to expand a bailout for the industry was widely credited with having preventing its collapse.
Several attendees at the event on Monday complained about the high cost of living in Michigan, particularly about the rise in food costs and utilities. But they did not always connect the economic pain they are feeling to Mr. Trump.
Julia McGrath, a 67-year-old artist who lives in West Bloomfield, said that rising food and housing costs have hit her wallet in recent months. But she said prices were also high under Mr. Trump’s predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“He didn’t just come in and raise prices,” Ms. McGrath said of the president. Asked whether she felt that the Trump administration’s tariff policies had contributed to rising prices in Michigan, Ms. McGrath said she was willing to wait for the economic benefits to start flowing. “I think in the long run, they’re going to benefit us.”
Ms. McGrath had traveled to the event with her 11-year-old grandson, Vincenzo, who is going into fifth grade. Vincenzo first attended a Trump rally when he was 6, during the pandemic, and said on Monday that he believed Mr. Trump was fighting for the country with his efforts on immigration enforcement.
“I want him to have a country when he is an adult,” Ms. McGrath said about her grandson. “And not a communist country either. Not a socialist country.”
After the event, Vincenzo said he had enjoyed the end of Mr. Trump’s speech the best, the part where the president promised to make America great again.
Karoun Demirjian, Anushka Patil and Jack Ewing contributed reporting.
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