Whitmer fundraises off Trump’s attacks in Michigan

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) launched a fundraising campaign Wednesday, using former President Trump’s attacks against her from earlier this week.

“I just want to make sure you heard: Donald Trump was just in Michigan. He spent his time here launching personal attacks and lies against me,” Whitmer wrote in a fundraising pitch for the Fight Like Hell PAC. “He attacks me time and time again because he fears what I have done — and will do — to stand up to him and his extremist allies.”

Trump, speaking from Grand Rapids, Mich., Tuesday, called Whitmer a “terrible governor” in a discussion about illegal immigration.

“Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a real beauty she is … I had to deal with her in COVID,” Trump said, adding later, “But she’s not pushing Michigan families to accept $500 a month to take illegal aliens into your homes … they don’t say this for our veterans or on the street. They don’t say this for other people, but they say it for migrants coming in because they want them to vote probably.”

He accused President Biden and Whitmer of “stealing” people’s money for housing migrants, calling it “so crazy.”

“She’s a terrible governor. By the way, your streets are bad, your everything’s bad,” he said. “She used to the come to the White House, she was so nice and then she goes, ‘Hey, I don’t like that man.’ I say, ‘Wait a minute? I was very nice, wasn’t I?'”

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Whitmer called Trump’s remarks “gross” and asked her followers to donate to ensure Trump “NEVER returns” to the White House. She argued the former president is “terrified” of the grassroots movement.

Trump’s speech in Grand Rapids levied a series of attacks against Biden’s border policies and the U.S. southern border situation. In doing so, he resurrected the term “bloodbath,” describing what he believes is a country overrun by migrants. 

“But it’s a border bloodbath, and it’s destroying our country, and it’s a very bad thing happening. It’s going to end on the day that I take office,” the former president said, vowing to carry out the largest deportation effort in history. 

In a discussion about what he believes to be a link between illegal immigration and crime, Trump referenced the murder of Ruby Garcia, who was allegedly killed last month in Grand Rapids. Police arrested Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 25, who told authorities he got into an argument with Garcia and shot her multiple times before dumping her body on the side of the road, The Associated Press reported.

Ortiz-Vite, a citizen of Mexico, came to the U.S. illegally as a child, but was protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson told The Hill. 

His DACA status expired in 2019, and upon being arrested on local charges in 2020, he was ordered back to Mexico, but he reentered the U.S. without inspection at some point afterward, the spokesperson added. 

Trump described Garcia, 25, as a “beautiful young woman [who] was savagely murdered by an illegal alien criminal” and vowed justice for her killer. 

He claimed he met and spoke with Garcia’s family, though Garcia’s sister, Mavi Garcia, said he nor anyone from his campaign reached out to her or her family members. She said she was shocked to hear him make that claim and angry to see him “politicize” her sister’s death.

In an interview this week on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins,” Whitmer said Trump was attempting to “score political points” and “capitalizing on a horrible tragedy that happened here.”

“There is a family that is grieving the loss of Ruby Garcia, and she was a real person, with a real story, and its a horrible story that happened,” Whitmer said, adding Trump “came in to perpetrate the continued storyline that he had done everything to keep us safe, which is baloney.”

The Hill reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment.