Former President will travel to the battleground state of Michigan next week to meet with instead of participating in the second Republican presidential debate, a person familiar with his plans said Monday.
Trump, who also skipped the first debate last month, has signaled that he is already focused on the against President as he maintains a wide lead against his GOP rivals in primary polls. In recent days, he has been leaning hard into the strike, painting himself as sympathetic to the workers and accusing Biden of trying to destroy the car industry by expanding electric cars and other green energy policies.
The Sept. 27 trip, first reported by The New York Times, will also include a primetime speech, according to the person familiar with the plans who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity before they were made public.
That鈥檚 the date others in the GOP field will gather at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, for the cycle鈥檚 .
When his fellow GOP contenders gathered in Milwaukee last month, Trump instead took part in a pre-taped interview with Tucker Carlson, which aired on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter during the debate鈥檚 first hour.
Trump has long sought to paint himself as a fighter for the 鈥渇orgotten men and women鈥� of the working class and spent much of his 2016 campaign campaigning in Rust Belt towns suffering from the shift away from mining and manufacturing. Earlier this year, he after a train derailment, a visit aides have considered a key moment in his campaign as he worked to recover from midterm losses, and as they tried to move his focus away from his 2020 loss.
Ammar Moussa, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said Monday: 鈥淒onald Trump is going to Michigan next week to lie to Michigan workers and pretend he didn鈥檛 spend his entire failed presidency selling them out at every turn. Instead of standing with workers, Trump cut taxes for the super-wealthy while auto companies shuttered their doors and shipped American jobs overseas.鈥� Moussa argued that Trump would have let auto companies go bankrupt during the financial crisis rather than bail them out, as President Barack Obama did in 2009.
On Monday, the United Auto Workers and Detroit鈥檚 Big Three carmakers resumed talks aimed at ending a strike that . Stellantis described the discussion as 鈥渃onstructive.鈥� A spokesperson for General Motors said representatives of the company and the United Auto Workers were continuing to negotiate.
Shawn Fain, the UAW president who has previously said that a second Trump presidency would be a 鈥渄isaster," seemed to argue against Trump's efforts.
鈥淓very fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers," Fain said in a statement issued Tuesday. "We can鈥檛 keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don鈥檛 have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.鈥�
Dave Green, a UAW regional director in Ohio and Indiana, said the former president鈥檚 actions during his time in office give him 鈥渮ero credibility鈥� with organized labor now, adding that he doesn鈥檛 see a way the UAW would ever endorse Trump.
鈥淗is only intention here is to try and get votes for himself. And also divide our members against each other using political rhetoric,鈥� Green told The AP on Monday.
Trump where the Oakland County GOP honored him as its Man of the Decade. Asked about the strike in an interview that aired Sunday, he told NBC News that 鈥渁uto workers will not have any jobs" because "electric cars, automatically, are going to be made in China.鈥�
鈥淭he auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership, and their leadership should endorse Trump,鈥� he added.
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.
Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press
