Kirsten Gillibrand seeks presidential campaign boost in Michigan
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., addresses Michigan residents at church in Bloomfield Hills her "Trump broken promises tour" through Midwest battleground states. Gillibrand stopped at Birmingham Unitarian Church on Friday, July 12, 2019. (Malachi Barrett | MLive.com)
By Malachi Barrett | mbarret1@mlive.com
Democratic presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand understands why Michigan voters supported President Donald Trump, but said he hasn't made good on his promises.
The U.S. Senator from New York is scheduled to visit three Michigan cities Friday during a bus tour of Midwest battleground states. Gillibrand met voters and activists to discuss the scourge of gun violence during her first campaign stop at a Unitarian church in Bloomfield Hills.
Gillibrand's tour is meant to highlight President Donald Trump's "broken promises" to voters in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, three states expected to be vital to Trump's re-election effort in 2020.
"(Trump) really promised the world, but the truth is he never meant it," Gillibrand said. "He lied the entire time."
Gillibrand's campaign is struggling for attention among the crowded primary field, but is among the earliest candidates to launch attacks on the president.
Gillibrand's Michigan events, her second campaign swing through the state in 2019, are scheduled just over three weeks before the second Democratic National Committee debate in Detroit on July 30 and July 31.
The third debate in September has a higher threshold to qualify. Gillibrand said she hasn't qualified yet and asked attendees to donate to her campaign.
"I need communities like this to rise up and speak out and support my campaign," Gillibrand said. She did not reveal her second quarter fundraising amount.
Trump has called Gillibrand a "lightweight" in the past. The campaign used attacks on the bus tour to drum up donations in an email to supporters Wednesday.
Trump frequently uses "promises made, promises kept" as a slogan while on the campaign trail, including at a March rally in Grand Rapids.
"We defeated a very corrupt establishment," Trump told the crowd while reminiscing about the 2016 election. "And we kept our promises to the American people. And it's driving them crazy."
Gillibrand focused on gun violence during the stop in Bloomfield Hills, also touching on the cost of prescription drugs, job outsourcing and layoffs and the manufacturing industry during the tour.
Many of the proposals Gillibrand discussed are commonly cited by Democrats running for president.
Gillibrand pledged to ban military-style assault weapons, close the "boyfriend loophole" to protect women in abusive relationships and compel to the CDC to better track gun violence statistics. She also wants to hold gun manufacturers accountable for having hand identification technology.
She also pledged to issue an executive order directing the Department of Justice to prosecute gun traffickers through conspiracy charges, saying Republicans and the NRA blocked legislative efforts to make gun trafficking a federal crime.
An attendee asked Gillibrand how to make rhetoric surrounding gun control more sensible. The Second Amendment shouldn't give someone the ability to "bring an Uzi to school," she said, but the argument has been misconstrued.
Gillibrand said the only way is to get money out of politics, citing powerful gun lobbyists like the NRA. She said greed and corruption in Congress is destroying progress on regulating weapons of war, pledging to help other Democrats campaign for Senate to take the majority.
Attendees at the event also wanted to steer the conversation toward criminal justice reform. Gillibrand acknowledged the disproportionate impact drug laws have had on people of color and pledged to legalize marijuana.
"Everybody smokes pot the same. But who gets arrested for it? Not white men of privilege," she said. "They're given a second chance every time."
Gillibrand says we need a president who will fight institutional racism "head on."
Taking on Trump
After stopping in Oakland County, Gillibrand headed to Flint for a private lunch with a public health advocate whose research exposed the Flint water crisis.
Gillibrand is scheduled to take a tour of the city's water treatment plant and farmers market before ending the evening at a Lansing brewery.
Gillibrand is polling near the bottom of the pack,. The five-term Senator's national polling average is just 0.2%, putting her in the same realm as less-experienced candidates like author Marianne Williamson.
Several attendees Friday who identified themselves as moderates said they are attracted to Gillibrand's sensible, pragmatic style.
Meanwhile, Michigan Republican Party Chair Laura Cox said Gillibrand's campaign is "disappearing," noting her low poll numbers.
"Gillibrand has proven she is out of touch with Michigan's values and has no path to victory in our state," Cox said in a statement.
Gillibrand is the first presidential candidate to release campaign ads in Michigan for the 2020 cycle. A 30-second spot featuring clips of Trump making promises on the 2016 campaign trail appeared in Detroit, Lansing and Flint media markets this week.
The ads are targeting voters who supported Trump in 2016 after voting for former Democratic President Barack Obama, according to the campaign.
Several Democratic candidates have tried to poke holes in Trump's claim that he upheld campaign promises. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called Trump a "pathological liar," who fed the middle-class false promises during a stop in Macomb County earlier this year.
Bringing manufacturing jobs back to the Midwest was of Trump's biggest promises on the campaign trail in 2016. Trump railed against unfair trade deals and other bad policy decisions that led to the shuttering of factories and offshoring of manufacturing jobs.
A recovering economy and growing manufacturing job industry remained a large part of Trump's re-election pitch during a Florida rally meant to launch his 2020 campaign. A list of the president's accomplishments on his campaign website includes the creation of 300,000 manufacturing jobs since he took office.
Gillibrand also came after Trump on the economy, saying he has done little to prevent outsourcing. Gillibrand said massive tax breaks for companies in Trump's 2017 tax reform law did little to keep jobs in the U.S.
Before coming to Michigan, Gillibrand visited Youngstown, Ohio to talk with families affected by the closure of a General Motors plant in Lordstown. Gillibrand said Trump's 2017 tax cut bill gave General Motors millions of dollars in tax benefits, but the company used it to line the pockets of executives before closing manufacturing plants in Ohio, Michigan and Canada.
Earlier this week, Gillibrand released a plan to tax "deadbeat" companies that move jobs overseas, shoring up funds to protect communities impacted by outsourcing.
Gillibrand proposed a set of financial penalties for companies to make up for the economic pain felt by communities when jobs are outsourced. Companies that move 25 jobs or more overseas will be subject to the penalties.
Companies would lose federal tax credits, have to repay local and state incentives received over 10 years and pay a 15% tax on the total economic value of any capital assets moved out of the United States. Any federal contracts would be ended and the company would face major penalties during consideration of future federal contracts.
Revenue from the tax would be funneled back into communities which lost the jobs. Gillibrand also proposed an economic disaster aid fund to provide job training, mortgage payments and other investments during mass layoffs.
In Cleveland, Gillibrand introduced a plan to expand Social Security benefits and increase taxes on the "ultra-wealthy" to raise more funds for the program.
Several Democratic primary contenders announced plans to hold campaign events in Michigan before the debate, including front-runners Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.