Trump tailors his message to key state of Michigan as he returns to the campaign trail after apparent assassination attempt

(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump told a Michigan crowd Tuesday night that steep tariffs he would impose on products imported from China, Mexico and other countries would rejuvenate the state’s automotive industry and drive an economic boom.

Trump, in his first campaign event since Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt, linked his economic proposals to the events at his West Palm Beach golf course on Sunday and the shooting at his Pennsylvania rally in July.

“And then you wonder why I get shot at, right?” Trump said in Flint. “Only consequential presidents get shot at.”

Trump said he would slap a 200% tariff on cars imported from Mexico, “which means they’re unsellable.”

He also sharply criticized the United Auto Workers union president, Shawn Fain, who he said is too supportive of President Joe Biden’s efforts to transition to electric vehicles. Trump claimed those vehicles are “all going to be made in China and Mexico,” despite union contracts negotiated late last year intended to guarantee those vehicles are built in the United States.

“We are going to bring so many auto plants into our country,” Trump said. “You are going to be as big or bigger than you were 50 years ago, because they won’t be able — if they’re not willing to build a plant, we don’t want their product.”

Trump claimed he would impose “reciprocal” tariffs matching those other countries slap on US imports — and said tariffs are a “beautiful word.”

It was a message tailored to a state that the former president won in 2016 and is rich with the kind of blue-collar voters who traditionally voted for Democrats before Trump entered the political scene. While the apparent assassination attempt on Sunday featured in his remarks frequently, Trump often sought to keep the town hall-style event focused on the auto industry and tariffs in particular.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has said Trump’s proposed tariffs would effectively amount to an inflation-driving national sales tax. Tariffs are paid by the companies that import foreign goods – and Harris’ campaign has noted that companies are all but certain to pass those additional costs on to consumers.

The former president, meanwhile, claimed that if Harris wins on November 5, there would be “zero car jobs, manufacturing jobs — they will all be out of here.”

“You won’t be making cars here anymore. You won’t be making anything in our country anymore,” Trump said. “We’re going to bring it all back.”

At the Flint event, Trump’s pitch for tariffs was a key theme, but he touched on a host of other issues — including warnings of nuclear war, praise for Elon Musk, complaining about the name of the coronavirus pandemic, repeating false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 election and more.

He also broke down the apparent assassination attempt, and its aftermath — including phone calls with Harris and Biden.

The scene in Flint

Trump emerged from a curtain in the hockey arena that hosted the event and walked down a long pathway lined with metal barricades and flanked by security agents. People leaned out to greet him and shake his hands.

Oftentimes at rallies, Trump walks onto the stage from an elevated platform and waves at supporters in the crowd without getting close.

“They think race-car driving is dangerous. No, they think bull-riding — that’s pretty scary, right? No, this is a dangerous business, so we have to keep it safe,” Trump said to Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his former White House press secretary who hosted the event.

He recounted phone calls with Biden on Monday and Harris on Tuesday, saying both Democrats were “nice” in their conversations.

Trump said he wanted to “be nice” because Biden “was so nice to me yesterday,” but he mused that he wished the calls hadn’t happened, so he didn’t have to praise his political rivals.

“You know, in one way, I sort of wish the call wasn’t made, because I do feel he was so, so nice,” he said, adding, “the same with Kamala today. She couldn’t have been nicer.”

Trump said the call with Harris was “very, very nice, and we appreciate that, but we have to take back our country. We have to win. We’re going to win, and we’re going to make America great again.”

Harris had discussed their phone call earlier Tuesday in Philadelphia.

“I checked on him to see if he is OK. I told him what I said publicly – there is no place for political violence in our country,” Harris said at a moderated conversation with the National Association of Black Journalists.

“I am in this election, in this race, for many reasons, including to fight for a democracy. And in a democracy, there is no place for political violence. We can and should have healthy debates and discussions and disagreements, but not resort to violence to resolve those issues,” she said.

Praise for Secret Service

Trump said the Secret Service “did a hell of a job, they really did,” in stopping Sunday’s apparent attempted assassination.

He praised the agents who identified and stopped the would-be assassin.

“Now, they do need more people, and they’ve been complaining about that for a long time. But he did a great job,” he said.

His comments came amid scrutiny of the Secret Service in recent weeks — particularly over its failure to stop a shooter from firing at the former president at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee leading the investigation into that shooting, said Tuesday he is “on the verge of outrage” with the Department of Homeland Security’s lack of cooperation. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said that “the problem right now” is that the DHS and Secret Service “are refusing to give us almost any documentation.”

“Why not? I mean, what do they — why don’t they want the accountability?” Hawley said.

Trump also praised a witness who saw the man jump into a car and took pictures of the license plate and sent those photos to the sheriff’s office.

“She saw something and decided it was bad,” he said of the witness. “Think of it — who would do this? If you took 1,000 of these incidents, would even one person have done it?”

CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo, Ebony Davis, Morgan Rimmer and Danya Gainor and contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.