Donald Trump gave his second sleepy address in as many days Tuesday during a stop in Howell, Michigan, diverting from his winding rant about crime to complain that women don’t seem to like him very much.
During Trump’s low-energy speech, which was hosted in a shiny white garage at the Livingston County Sheriff’s office in front of parked police SUVs, the convicted felon candidate desperately attempted to frame his opponent, a former prosecutor, as being too lenient on crime.
Trump alleged that Kamala Harris was “the ringleader for this pro-crime and anti-police crusade. It’s a real anti-police crusade. They just have it out for the police. Nobody knows why.”
He also called Harris “one of the first Marxist prosecutors in America” and “the godmother of sanctuary cities.”
Trump continued to falsely claim that Harris was responsible for passing a law that allows shoplifters in California to steal up to $950 in goods without being prosecuted, which Trump first claimed during his wild press conference last week in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“So, guys are walking into stores with calculators,” Trump said, turning to the officers standing behind him. “Did you know that they have calculators? They’re adding it up, they want to make sure they’re under $950. But it didn’t matter because they didn’t prosecute the ones that went over it.”
The Golden State’s penal code says nothing of the sort. Instead, it states that shoplifters who steal under $950 are charged with a misdemeanor, and those who steal more are charged with a felony. Even if the law said what Trump keeps insisting it does, which it doesn’t, it’s not clear that Harris had anything to do with the law being passed, or with “that horrible shoplifting epidemic” he blamed her for.
While Trump’s speech was meant to focus on crime and safety, he was miraculously able to deliver the exact same talking points he’d made at every speaking event for the past week. He did make one new, but ultimately unsurprising claim, about his apparent lack of support from female voters.
The Republican nominee promised that if elected to the White House, he would stop the “plunder, rape, slaughter, and destruction of our American suburbs,” before detouring into a rant about women voters.
“I think that women living in the suburbs—I keep hearing about ‘the suburban woman doesn’t like Trump,’ well, I think it’s a fake poll because why wouldn’t they like me? I keep the suburbs safe,” Trump claimed, arguing that women should be grateful that he kept undocumented immigrants out of their communities.
“I think that they like me a lot, I think it’s a lot of fake polls,” Trump insisted, claiming he had “won the big one,” despite what polls had predicted. Trump went on to argue that for women voters, safety was the most important issue.
“Women want to have safety. They want to have a strong military. They want to have a strong police force. They want to be in the house, and they want to be safe. They don’t want to have people pouring into their doors and you can’t do anything about it. Right?”
As the crowd clapped, Trump mused, “I hope they like my personality.”
He thought about it for a moment. “I have a nice personality. But to me, it wouldn’t be very important, the personality. They want to be safe,” Trump said.
Trump: I keep hearing the suburban woman doesn’t like Trump. I think it’s a fake poll. Why wouldn’t they like me? I think they like me a lot. pic.twitter.com/JYOyHkFWIx
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 20, 2024
Rather than actually craft a message that appeals to female voters, who could reasonably be disturbed by any part of Trump and J.D. Vance’s lackluster platform, including their overtly misogynistic rhetoric, Trump has repeatedly tried to woo women with his racist anti-immigrant fear-mongering.
On Sunday, Trump shared a post on his Truth Social account showing video footage of a line of people of color walking on a dirt road with the caption, “If you’re a woman you can either vote for Trump or wait until one of these monsters goes after you or your daughter.”
Trump’s attempts to convince women to vote for him have been falling flat, and female voters have been moving steadily to the left, or as far away from Trump as they can manage. A New York Times/Siena poll published Saturday found that Kamala Harris had opened up a significant gender gap in some key battleground states, earning a 14-point lead over Trump among likely women voters in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada, a group that had been evenly split between Joe Biden and Trump in May.
Trump’s speech had no shortage of the fear-mongering one has come to expect from the former president, even if he delivered it at a lower-energy frequency than normal. He went on to repeat his oft-issued threat, that the world was on the precipice of World War III.
He claimed he would never allow the military to become woke, before randomly turning to the officers standing behind him. “Do you promise you’ll never be woke? I don’t see a lot of wokeness, there’s not a lot of wokeness,” Trump said. “I don’t think so.”
Trump's incoherent, rambling "crime" speech in Michigan has now veered into fear-mongering about nuclear war and "woke." If events like this are a new part of his campaign strategy, it won't be long before they rethink it. pic.twitter.com/troCwzgev2
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 20, 2024
