DETROIT (AP) — Donald Trump on Thursday lobbed new complaints about the federal response to a pair of hurricanes that ravaged large swaths of the Southeast, as he again seeks to increasingly turn two deadly storms to his political advantage ahead of the November election.
The former president spoke at the Detroit Economic Club, shortly after his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, virtually attended a briefing, held in the White House Situation Room, on emergency efforts in Hurricane Milton’s wake. Harris is scheduled to attend a Univision town hall in Las Vegas and an evening rally in Phoenix as she remains in close contact with federal authorities about the storm.
Trump offered empathetic messages to people affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which came ashore Wednesday night. Trump also suggested that the federal response had been lacking, particularly in North Carolina, where he alleged the government after Helene had “not done what you’re supposed to be doing.”
“They’ve let those people suffer unjustly,” said Trump, who has for several days promoted falsehoods about the response of President Joe Biden and emergency management officials.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly slammed Trump for spreading misinformation about federal assistance available to victims, including falsely claiming that such assistance is capped at $750. In reality, that is just for immediate needs, the first potential payout rather than the total.
“That $750 that they’re talking about, Mr. Trump and all those other people know it’s a lie to suggest that’s all they’re going to get,” Biden said Thursday. “It’s just bizarre. They got to stop this. They’re being so damn un-American with the way they’re talking about this stuff.”
Asked if he planned to speak with Trump to urge him to stop, Biden said he wouldn’t, but followed that with a message delivered directly into television cameras: “Mr. President Trump, former President Trump, get a life, man. Help these people.”
Despite the storm, Trump and Harris are slated to visit key swing states on Thursday, using their travel strategically, trying to increase support with key voting blocs who could decide an election expected to be exceedingly close.
In Michigan, where he’s looking to appeal to primarily to blue-collar voters, Trump took a swipe at the city he happened to be campaigning in, suggesting that Detroit was “a mess.”
“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president,” he said of Harris. “You’re going to have a mess on your hands.”
He also used his speech to echo core themes from his 2016 campaign, saying some other countries, especially China, are ripping the U.S. off and taking manufacturing business away. Trump said powerful companies have “raped” the United States and vowed to impose huge tariffs that he said would force other countries to negotiate what they charge on American products.
“They’ve been screwing us for so many years that we’re allowed to get some of that back,” Trump said about charging tariffs from countries.
Economists warn Trump’s proposed tariffs would drive up consumer costs. Trump has also claimed, without providing specifics, that he can use tariffs to reduce the U.S. budget deficit and pay for an expansion of childcare funding, even as he proposes other ideas to end taxes on things like tips and Social Security without saying how he would replace the lost funding.
But the former president seemed to not understand the difference between the budget deficit and trade imbalances, conflating the two different economic measures as essentially being the same thing.
He noted that the federal government has nearly $36 trillion in total debt, a byproduct of the annual borrowing needed to cover the gap between tax revenues and government spending. Except Trump then seemed to indicate that the debt was a byproduct of the trade deficit with China, which is a separate issue that reflects the difference between how much a country exports and how much it imports.
“We have $36 trillion in debt,” Trump said. “For years and years and years, we’ve been accumulating. We’d have these deficits that are monstrous. We had 5,6,7 $800 billion deficit with China.”
He also claimed that “we had the highest job numbers in my administration” but that isn’t true any longer. The unemployment rate fell slightly lower under Biden — to 3.4% early last year, the lowest in a half-century, below 3.5% before the pandemic under Trump.
Harris is out west, as she looks to increase support among Hispanic voters, especially men. Her campaign began a group this week known as “Hombres con Harris” which is planning to hold upcoming events at Latino-owned small businesses, union halls, barbecues and community events until Election Day.
The Harris campaign has also aimed to reach Hispanic voters who may not be closely following the election by doing things like having Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Harris’ campaign manager, attend the recent boxing match between Canelo Alvarez and Edgar Berlanga in Las Vegas, and holding events at churches and elsewhere to mark Mexican Independence Day in September.
Harris’ campaign also announced last month that it was spending $3 million on Spanish-language radio ads and focusing on sport events like baseball games and boxing matches. Harris’ appearance in Nevada also coincided with a Democratic National Committee effort to put bilingual billboards in Las Vegas and ads promoting the importance of voting in Spanish-language newspapers in southern Nevada.
Hispanic voters are about evenly split on whether to trust Harris or Trump to do a better job handling the economy, but they give the former president an edge on handling immigration. About 4 in 10 Hispanic voters trust Trump more on the economy, and a similar share trust Harris more.
When it comes to handling immigration, 45% of Hispanic voters trust Trump more and 38% trust Harris more. Hispanic women voters are more likely to trust Harris to better handle the economy and immigration, and Hispanic men are more likely to trust Trump on both issues, according to polling from The Associated Press and NROC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama is also hitting the campaign trail on Thursday night, making his first appearance for Harris at a rally in Pittsburgh. Obama’s team says he will focus on swing states, especially those with key Senate races. If he does so, that might mean promoting her harder than Biden, who just made one joint campaign appearance with Harris since he himself left the race in July.
Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Christopher Rugaber and Josh Boak in Washington Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.
