On Wednesday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden spoke to UAW members in Warren, making his first in-person visit to Michigan as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Biden addressed a small crowd of roughly one dozen attendees and a limited pool of reporters at a parking lot behind the UAW Region 1 headquarters in Macomb County.
During his visit, Biden discussed a job plan his campaign that he has in the works in which he calls for hiking tax penalties on companies that move jobs out of the country and providing tax benefits for those that reopen closed plants to employ more U.S. workers.
Biden also said during his speech that a local General Motors transmission plant closed last year despite Trump’s pledges to protect Michigan jobs and added, “I bet the workers around here weren’t all that comforted by Trump’s empty promises.”
“Under Donald Trump, Michigan lost auto jobs even before COVID hit,” Biden said. “And what about offshoring? Has Trump delivered on stopping companies from shipping American jobs overseas? You already know the answer to that. Of course not.”
“He’s failed our economy and our country,” Biden said Wednesday, promising to create a “Made in America” office within the White House Office of Management and Budget to ensure government projects use resources made domestically.
In the beginning of his speech, Biden reacted to a reporting from the Washington Post about a conversation Trump had with a reporter on Feb. 7, in which Trump acknowledged the virus is “more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”
“Meanwhile, on the day we hit 190,000 dead in the United States because of COVID-19, we just learned from Washington Post columnist Bob Woodward that president of the United States has admitted on tape in February he knew about COVID-19, that it passed through the air,” Biden said. “He knew how deadly it was. He knew and purposefully played it down. Worse, he lied to the American people. He knowingly and willingly lied about the threat it posed for months.”
The coronavirus pandemic has killed 189,147 deaths in the U.S. as of Wednesday and resulted in 6.3 million confirmed cases. In Michigan, 6,539 deaths are linked to the virus, while 107,812 people have been infected.
Biden expressed that Trump’s failure to take the virus more seriously was a “life and death betrayal” of the American people. He called details in the Washington Post report “beyond despicable” and said Trump is not fit to lead the country.
“Experts say if he had just acted one week sooner, 36,000 people would have been saved,” Biden said. “If he acted two weeks sooner back in March, 54,000 lives would have been spared in March and April alone.”
Biden made a stop at a Detroit store on the Avenue of Fashion Wednesday during his visit to metro Detroit, following the campaign event at the UAW Region 1 headquarters in Macomb County, according to pool reports.
Biden visited the Three Thirteen Store on Livernois.
According to the Associated Press, Biden got several shirts that read “Detroit made me,” which the AP reports he was buying for his grandchildren.
He also spoke with Clement Brown, the owner of the store, and his young son C.J., on the sidewalk out front.
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