Donald Trump appeared on stage with a local Imam and an Arab-American mayor at his rally in suburban Detroit, and said the influential group of voters they represent could tip the election his way.
‘I’m thrilled to accept the endorsement of these highly respected leaders,’ Trump said, as he brought on stage Imam Belal Alzuhairi. Also speaking was Bill Bazzi, the the Mayor of Dearborn Heights, who was born in Lebanon.
‘We, as Muslims, stand with President Trump because he promises peace, not war,’ Alzuhairi told the crowd of a few thousand, who cheered loudly. ‘The bloodshed has to stop all over the world. And I think this man can make that happen. I personally believe that God saved his life twice for a reason,’ he said to cheers.
Trump also talked up the political influence Muslims and Arab Americans, who number an estimated 200,000 in the state of Michigan.
‘They could turn the election one way or the other,’ Trump said.
It was just one dramatic moment at a campaign event where Trump also tried to clean up his comments insulting the Motor City.
Trump appeared with Arab American and Muslim leaders after picking up a few key endorsements. He said the groups of voters they represent could ‘turn the election’
On Saturday he said he meant the city ‘needs help’ when he ran down Detroit during a speech in the Motor City.
‘It needs help. So I said it needs help,’ Trump said in Novi, referencing his speech to the Detroit Economic Club.
‘I can’t be positive,’ he explained. ‘I’ll be positive – within two years I’ll be a positive person, how’s that?’
He had earlier called the city a ‘mess’ and compared it to a developing country. ‘Detroit’s a developing area more than most places in China,’ he said. That was before he called the country a ‘garbage can,’ a comment he repeated on Saturday, pointing to illegal immigration.
Trump spoke to several thousand supoorters at the Suburban Collection Showplace. He hopes cut into traditional Democratic support not only from Arab-Americans but also with help from union members and others who work in the auto industry, which he claimed he would revive.
After bashing Kamala Harris-endorsing former Rep. Liz Cheney as a ‘war monger,’ Trump said of Arab and Muslim voters: ‘They’re not into the transgender operations. They’re not into the men playing in women’s sports.’
Trump claimed Harris would get the country into wars and threatened, ‘Your sons and daughters will end up getting drafted.’
‘The bloodshed has to stop all over the world, and I think this man can make that happen,’ said Imam Belal Alzuhairi, who spoke at Trump’s rally
Attendees cheered as Trump ripped Kamala Harris and said he would restore the auto industry to greatness
He also mocked Harris for relying on celebrities to pack her campaign rallies, and called for a return to same-day voting – even while claiming he was winning in the Michigan early vote that began Saturday.
‘They have to use people to get people to come,’ Trump said, failing to name-drop Beyonce and Willie Nelson, who appeared with Harris Friday night, or Bruce Springsteen, who performed at her Thursday rally.
‘They booed the hell out of everybody. They thought she was going to perform,’ Trump claimed.
He also accused Harris of bringing in celebs to boost crowd numbers, after she topped 20,000 at the largest rally of the entire campaign in Houston.
‘We don’t send busses, everybody comes,’ said Trump, although a line of motor coaches and school busses brought people to and from his Traverse City rally Friday.
Once again, Trump didn’t hold back on the insults to his rival. He said she ‘can’t speak,’ ‘destroyed’ everything she touched, and is a ‘stupid person.’
The remarks delighted the rally crowd, but have the potential to harm Trump among independents and other suburban women who hold sway.
‘I love that because we’re already leading in the early vote, which is something no Republican has done in Michigan since they went to this ridiculous system,’ Trump bragged.
Then he railed against the prolonged vote. ‘Just have one-day voting, voter ID, paper ballots,’ Trump said, ‘and you know what you’d have no problem.’
He said it would cost just 8 percent and get a result by nine or nine-thirty and ‘there’s no stuff going on in the sky.’
That comment seemed to suggest high-tech vote-switching, which was at the heart of fraud complaints by Trump allies in 2020 that resulted in a massive settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.
It follows reports that Trump will once again declare victory on election night, even as the votes are still being counted.
Trump and Harris were both fully engaged in the battle for Michigan Saturday, with the candidates campaigning miles apart with the presidency on the line – and a popular former first lady joining the fray.
Long lines at early voting stations in Kalamazoo were so substantial that voters were turning away at hour-and-half wait times.
Trump made the rare decision to forego his own bed and stay overnight in Detroit after his Friday night rally in Traverse City in northern Michigan began almost three hours late following Trump’s extended podcast interview with Joe Rogan.
He rallied thousands of supporters at an indoor venue in Novi, in suburban Detroit, with polls showing a tight race in Michigan and all seven of the battleground states.
‘This campaign is on fire – you can feel it!’ said Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain, warming up Trump’s rally crowd in Novi, a Detroit suburb.
Harris is set hold a campaign rally with Michelle Obama at the Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo later Saturday – the first day of early voting in the state.
She is considered a beloved campaign ‘closer’ who had Democrats on their feet at the party’s Chicago convention in August.
Trump is set to hold another rally in State College, Pennsylvania later Saturday
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It is the 2024 campaign trail debut for the former first lady, among the most popular figures in the Democratic Party and ones a dream candidate to step in for Joe Biden, 81.
Harris supporters started lining up bright and early on the crisp fall day for the chance to get into the Democratic presidential nominee’s rally.
The event puts Harris about 100 miles away from Trump. There were already lines around the block.
She’ll be back in the state on Monday, her campaign just announced, with a rally also billed as a concert with singer Maggie Rogers in Ann Arbor.
That event is a clear move to try to run up the score among young voters, who had been drifting away from Democrats with Biden on top of the ticket.
Now, Harris is relying on young voters and women to overcome Trump’s gains among minority men, and a wild card of the states roughly 200,000 Arab American voters.
California Rep. Darrell Issa, referenced the Arab-Israeli conflict ‘as an Arab American’ in his remarks to the Novi crowd.
He said the peace process ‘is in ruins today [and] can only be restored by a return to the kind of engagement we saw during the four Trump years.’ Issa’s father was the son of Lebanese immigrants.
Longtime Trump advisor Steven Miller pointed to the polling support Trump was getting from Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan.
‘He’s going to set all kinds of records,’ Miller told the crowd in Novi. ‘That’s one more reason he’s going to win Michigan.’
More than 1.4 million people have already cast ballots in Michigan even before early in-person voting kicked off on Saturday, according to tracking by the University of Florida Election Lab.
A long line of Harris supporters waiting to enter her rally with Michelle Obama in Kalamazoo, MI on Saturday
Even President Joe Biden is getting in on the act, as he jets to Pittsburgh even after making a rhetorical stumble at his last event, in surprisingly close New Hampshire. It was there that he said ‘lock him up’ when speaking of Trump, then walking back the comment to say ‘politically.’
Biden got asked before boarding Air Force One about Trump’s comments comparing the U.S. to a ‘garbage can.’
‘Trump has no class,’ Biden responded, keeping his response clean.
The race in Michigan couldn’t be much closer. Polls have a virtual tie, with Trump leading by just a few tenths of a percent in the RealClearPolitics average.
After accusing Harris of taking it easy and spending time prepping for TV appearances, Trump plans to immediately jet to State College, Pennsylvania, where he is holding a big rally in another battleground state that is a pure tossup.
Grabbing a page from John McCain’s playbook in his race against Barack Obama, Trump is trying to use Harris’s string of celebrity appearances against her.
On Friday night, he accused his rival of ‘partying’ while Israel attacked Iran amid constant fears of an expanding Middle East conflict.
She had been accepting the high-wattage endorsement of singer Beyonce Knowles, who spoke but did not perform.
The vice president focused her speech on reproductive rights and a series of speakers shared deeply personal stories from women dealing with the Texas abortion ban.