Michigan is a vitally important battleground state in this year's presidential election but it went virtually unmentioned in Tuesday's night's presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and Republican former President Donald Trump.
That said, the fractious debate − which saw Harris make a forceful argument for herself as representing a "new generation of leadership" and a chance to "turn the page" while Trump attacked Harris and President Joe Biden's administration as weak on the economy and border and repeated various false claims about rampant crime and foreign countries sending criminals from their prisons into the U.S. − did have some Michigan connections.
Here's a handful of highlights:
Trump delivered a line reminiscent of one from Harris in metro Detroit
At one point, about midway through the debate, Trump, perhaps rattled by Harris' claim that her working-class background mirrored that of middle-class voters more than that of the former president, who inherited wealth from his family, and her argument that Americans want a "leader who actually understands the strength is not in beating people down, it is in lifting people up," started in on Harris, accusing her of flip-flopping on earlier positions.
Specifically, he argued that she was "big on" defunding police during the protests over the death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020, though she abandoned that position before becoming vice president. As Harris shook her head, saying it wasn't true, the former president said, "Wait a minute, I'm talking now, if you don't mind, please. Does that sound familiar?"
It was a line possibly lifted − well, misquoted − from Harris, who at a rally at Metro Detroit Airport in early August, flashed a steely glare at pro-Palestinian protesters in the huge audience who began to chant and didn't stop immediately after she asked them to do so. "You know what," she told them. "If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I'm speaking."
The other possibility is that Trump was parroting a line Harris delivered to then-Vice President Mike Pence in their vice presidential debate in 2020 when Pence interrupted her. (She said, "I'm speaking," not "I'm talking," then, too.)
For the record, regarding the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Harris repeated at the debate that she supports the right of Israel to defend itself after Hamas' violent attack last October but also said a ceasefire must be negotiated to stop the killing of innocent civilians in the Palestinian territories. Trump repeated that the war never would have happened if he were president and that he'd end it immediately without providing any details. He also accused Harris − without evidence − of hating both Israel and "the Arab population."
Back-and-forth on manufacturing touches on auto jobs
It was frankly more than a little surprising that at no point during the debate did Trump talk about what he calls the Biden administration's "mandate" to force Americans to buy electric vehicles, given how much the claim is made by the former president and other Republican candidates. But he didn't. And for the record, there is no such mandate, though the administration has adopted emission rules for cars so strict that they could theoretically require automakers to sell mostly electric vehicles by 2032 or face penalties, absent a change in the rules or some other technology.
But Detroit's automakers did get a mention, late in the debate, when Harris claimed the administration has created some 800,000 manufacturing jobs when Trump, she said, oversaw a decline in manufacturing. "I'm also proud to have the endorsement of the United Auto Workers and (UAW President) Shawn Fain ," said Harris, "who also knows that part of building a clean energy economy includes investing in American-made products, American automobiles."
Trump fired back that Chinese companies are opening plants in Mexico with the belief they will be able to import vehicles into the U.S. and undercut American manufacturers and said if he's elected, he'll stop any such imports "because they will kill the United Auto Workers and any auto worker, whether it's in Detroit or South Carolina or any other place."
Mexico, however, has already begun backing off incentives for Chinese car investments under pressure from the Biden administration, and the president earlier this year instituted a 100% tariff on EVs from China , with the possibility of further trade rules to stop Chinese imports via Mexico into the U.S.
As for claims about manufacturing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Trump saw a decline during his term of about 180,000 jobs, though the economy was still recovering at the time from the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns. Before COVID hit, manufacturing jobs were up about 414,000, or more than 3% from when he entered office. During the Biden administration some 739,000 manufacturing jobs were created nationally, a gain of more than 6%, though some of that was due to the economy strengthening after COVID.
And motor vehicle and parts manufacturing is up to 1.08 million jobs nationally in August, above the 1.01 million high mark during the Trump years in January 2019. Motor vehicle manufacturing jobs in Michigan declined during Trump's term even before the pandemic. They're up 10% now compared to the high water mark under Trump in January 2017.
More: Michigan voters say Tuesday's Harris-Trump debate was likely not a game-changer
Trump gets the 2020 election, and its aftermath, wrong again
A week ago it appeared as if Trump maybe had finally given up the false claim that he had actually won the 2020 election over Biden, telling a podcaster that he "lost by a whisker."
At Tuesday night's debate, he took it all back, saying he was being sarcastic when he said that.
"Look, there's so much proof. All you have to do is look at it," Trump said, regarding his longstanding claim that fraud and corruption in a handful of key swing states, including Michigan, cost him the election.
Only it's not true. There has been no evidence produced publicly and found to be credible by any official body backing up claims of corruption or fraud on a scale that could have swung the election. That was the conclusion of audits and reviews by Republican lawmakers in Michigan and elsewhere . On Tuesday, Trump also claimed that "no judge" in any of the states where his allies brought lawsuits questioning the election even looked at the evidence, dismissing all of them for a lack of "standing."
But that's not exactly true , looking at just two cases that were considered in Michigan . In one, a judge did say that the plaintiffs who were Republican presidential electors didn't have standing but the court analyzed the claims anyway and found them speculative. In another Michigan case, claims of fraudulent behavior were also found to lack enough substantive evidence to move forward. In one case, an appeals court upheld sanctions of more than $100,000 against a group of lawyers to the city of Detroit for making it defend itself against what the Free Press called a "conspiracy-ridden lawsuit that contained wild allegations related to voting machines and voter turnout."
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 3 Michigan takeaways from the Harris-Trump debate
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