Biden campaign uses Trump 2016 rally with Michigan autoworkers to tout record

President Biden’s reelection campaign marked the seven years since former President Trump told Michigan autoworkers that plants in their state wouldn’t be lost, using the anniversary to tout Biden’s own record on the matter.

Trump, while campaigning in 2016, said at a rally in Michigan that the state wouldn’t lose any of its plants if he were elected. But during his presidency, General Motors closed production at multiple plants, and Democrats in 2020 highlighted that as evidence that Trump broke his promises to workers.

The Biden campaign is now using the 7-year-old remark from its political rival to highlight Biden’s record on jobs, according to a statement first shared with The Hill.

“Seven years ago Donald Trump looked Michigan autoworkers in the eye and lied to them. ‘You won’t lose one plant’ he told them. Months later, Trump signed one of the largest corporate tax giveaways ever, ballooning the deficit and paving the way for corporations to ship jobs overseas. That’s exactly what happened — plants shuttered and jobs across the Midwest were lost,” Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said.

The anniversary of Trump’s remark comes just after the United Auto Workers (UAW) struck a tentative deal with the Big Three auto companies to end its weeks-long strike. Biden called UAW President Shawn Fain on Monday and said the agreement was hard-fought and came after good faith negotiations.

“If Donald Trump has his way again he would cede the auto industry future to China and decimate American manufacturing — just as he did when he was President. President Biden has helped create hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, stood on the picket line with workers to secure higher wages, and remains laser focused on keeping these good-paying union jobs right here in America. When President Biden makes a promise, he keeps it,” Moussa said.

Biden and Trump competed for support from the autoworkers during the strike after Biden won Michigan in 2020 and Trump won the state in 2016.

Biden appeared with striking autoworkers in September, a historic show of solidarity from a president with a union. Meanwhile, Trump criticized Biden’s policies to promote electric vehicles as an attack on autoworkers and gave a speech in Michigan recently to call out what he views as a flawed and failing auto industry under the Biden administration.

The Biden campaign snapped back at Trump throughout the strike, saying auto companies would have gone bankrupt under him. And, they shared that Trump suggested in 2015 moving some car production from Michigan.