Trump Insists Suburban Women 'Like Me A Lot' In Disjointed Speech On Crime
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday dismissed polls showing him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris among women as “fake” and argued his tough-on-crime policies would be the key to winning the critical voting bloc in November.
“Why wouldn’t they like me?” Trump asked of suburban women at an event with local law enforcement in Howell, Michigan. “I keep the suburbs safe. I stopped low-income towers from rising right along the side of their house. I keep the illegal aliens away from the suburbs.”
“I think they like me a lot. Women want to be safe,” he added.
Polls have shown a large gender gap in the 2024 race ever since Harris, the first female vice president, became the Democratic presidential nominee. She has a 14-point lead over Trump among likely women voters, 55% to 41%, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll. Meanwhile, Trump leads among men by 17 points, 56% to 39%.
America’s suburbs are among the most contested areas in the country, and Trump’s campaign is hoping to win over voters by going on offense about crime and illegal immigration. The GOP’s presidential nominee delivered a rambling, hourlong speech on Tuesday that was filled with fearmongering about undocumented immigrants and efforts to portray the nation as a gruesome hellscape only he — and not Harris — could fix.
“If she’s allowed to be president of the United States, you’ll see levels of crime you’ve never seen before,” said Trump, who was convicted of 34 felonies in May. “I will deliver law, order, safety, and peace.”
“When I return to the White House, we will put a stop to the plunder, rape, slaughter and destruction of our American suburbs, our cities and towns,” he added.
Trump’s campaign sent out a set of prepared remarks for the candidate before he spoke, indicating that he would be asking “for the DEATH PENALTY for child rapists and child traffickers,” according to a social media post from NOTUS reporter Reese Gorman. In the advance excerpts, Trump also called for making “a felony for any medical professional to perform surgery on a minor without parental consent,” part of the larger GOP war against gender-affirming care for minors.
But Trump never actually delivered those prepared remarks on Tuesday, and his campaign didn’t explain why.
Trump’s speech on Tuesday took place one month after a group of white supremacists rallied in Howell, chanting, “We love Hitler, we love Trump,” and carrying signs with messages like “White Lives Matter.” (The town has historical links to the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1970s, Robert Miles, a former Michigan Grand Dragon of the klan, had a Howell mailing address and held meetings on a nearby farm.)
Harris’ campaign attacked Trump over the weekend ahead of his event for holding it in Howell just a month after the rally, claiming that “Trump’s actions have encouraged” white supremacists. A Trump spokesperson denied any link and called the accusation “absurd.”
Trump didn’t address the rally in his remarks. Instead, he veered from criticizing Harris’ appearance to complaining about President Joe Biden’s decision to leave the 2024 race, and he railed about the supposed topic of the speech, crime in America.
“You can’t run across the street to get a loaf of bread, you get shot,” Trump said. “We have to bring back our cities. People are fleeing the cities of our country.”
