During the rally at Huntington Place held Friday evening, Trump started off the battleground event with significant microphone glitches, before leaning into accusations Vice President Harris has helped sell out Detroit’s manufacturing industry to cheaper labor oversees, expounding on his dreams to lead a great Detroit “comeback,” and giving further insight into his deepening relationship with SpaceX founder Elon Musk. 

Here are the top four takeaways from Trump’s latest Detroit appearance. 

Microphone blowout 

Trump notably experienced problems with his microphone for nearly 20 minutes at the onset of the rally. 

He was reflecting on “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” when audience members began pointing to indicate they couldn’t hear him. 

Pacing on stage to the massive crowd’s raucous cheers of “USA, USA” and “We love Trump”, Trump told supporters “If it goes out again, I’ll sue the a** off that company” after the mic finally came back on. 

Trump’s mic has cut out pic.twitter.com/R6GwhnCOIL

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 19, 2024

After later saying he was “blowing out my voice” in order to be heard with the obstinate mic, the former president joked that “when I get rid of this microphone at the end of this speech, it’s going to be Liberation Day for Donald J. Trump.” 

A Detroit ‘comeback’

Trump reiterated his concerns that “Democrats have been wreaking havoc” in the Motor City after recently making headlines for worrying “our whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Harris won the election.  

Critics, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), had claimed his comments at the Detroit Economic Club were “insulting.” Trump’s address at the economic forum centered on his plan for Detroit’s “rebirth,” arguing that enacting tariff proposals and an America First agenda would spark a comeback for the city that turned into a ghost town following the 2008 Great Recession. 

Trump’s remarks at Huntington Place mirrored his comments at the Detroit Economic Club. 

“Detroit has such great potential, but Kamala and the Democrats have been wreaking havoc on this place,” he said. “It’s a sacred place — so many things happened in Detroit, and it’s been treated so badly. And they’ve been talking about comebacks for so long but we’re going to bring it back better than it ever was better than it was many, many years ago.”

The birthplace of Henry Ford’s iconic Model T, Detroit’s automobile industry was once the bastion of economic prosperity before its descent into decline during the late 1970’s. Detroit’s downturn accelerated with the 2008 Great Recession, which turned the once vibrant Motor City into a ghost town. 

But Trump said he could bring “the real comeback” to the city if reelected in 17 days. 

Miracle tariffs

The former president has made tariffs a key part of his America First Agenda that he says would pump jobs back into cities like Detroit which were once manufacturing hotspots. 

“Standing before you tonight, I am proclaiming to the people of this state, that by the end of my term, the entire world will be talking about the Michigan miracle and the stunning rebirth of Detroit,” he promised. 

Renewing his promise to put “massive terrors, very big tariffs on anybody in Mexico that are selling cars that are going to hurt our business here,” Trump told Michigan supporters: “We want people to build plants in the United States, employ our people.”

“And ideally, they’ll build it right here in Detroit,” he added. 

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Standing before you tonight, I am proclaiming to the people of this state that by the end of my term, the entire world will be talking about the MICHIGAN MIRACLE and the stunning rebirth of Detroit. pic.twitter.com/QgmmsMU8rT

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 18, 2024

He pushed back on criticism that tariffs are part of a protectionist agenda that would undermine free markets. 

Saying his “pro-worker policies“ are “really not protectionist,” Trump argued that for “years and years,” the U.S. has been outsourcing jobs and selling out the auto industry to China and Mexico. 

“They’ve been ripping us off,” he said. “Now it’s time for us to get it back.

Elon Musk is ‘the coolest’

Trump indicated that he is routinely exchanging phone calls with Space X and Tesla founder Elon Musk, who has spent Thursday and Friday barnstorming for the former president in Pennsylvania after prominently endorsing him in July. 

Trump praised Musk’s latest achievement at Space X when the company managed to capture its Super Heavy booster using giant “Chopsticks” arms.

“I saw that rocket come down three, four days ago, that sucker was coming down. I said, Oh my God, I never saw anything like it,” he said. 

“I said, it’s going to crash. It’s going to crash into the gantry. Don’t crash. And then you see another engine take it perfectly, lands right at the spot that it took. I said, ‘That must be Elon,’” he continued. “ I called up Elon. I said, ‘Elon, was that you?’ ‘That was me’ I say, ’Who else can do it?’  I said, ‘Can Russia do it?’ ‘No.’ ‘Can the U.S. do it?’ meaning the U.S. outside of you? He said, ‘No.’ Nobody can do that.”

Trump continued to thank Musk for “campaigning so hard in Pennsylvania” after the historic rocket launch. “Can you imagine he just lands as big a landing anyone’s ever seen, and he leaves for you to campaign for me. Can you imagine that?” he said. 

Throughout further musings about his deepening relationship with the tech titan Friday evening, Trump called Musk “the coolest” during comments about the role he played in delivering Starlinks to remote communities devastated by Hurricane Helene. 

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The former president said he was responsible for initially calling up Musk and getting the internet service providers to stranded people in western North Carolina and Georgia. 

“He saved a lot of lives,” Trump said.