RACINE, Wis. — Back on the campaign trail in Wisconsin for the third time this year, former President Donald Trump not only cleared up his comments about Milwaukee but also put the focus on a familiar theme from his last campaign: law and order.
With a new sweeping immigration plan from the White House, the border became the focus of this latest visit.
Trump contrasted his campaign with that of the current president’s and said since he left office, things are not only more expensive but more dangerous.
On the heels of allegedly calling Milwaukee a “horrible city,” the former president, who held a rally at Racine Festival Park, wasted no time explaining his words.
“I said we’ve got to fix the crime—we all know that,” Trump said. “We’ve got to make sure the election is honest, but I’m the one that picked Milwaukee.”
The Republican National Committee, however, picked Milwaukee in August of 2022, long before Trump became the party's presumed nominee for president.
Whether in context or not, the comment and the host city for the upcoming 2024 RNC doesn’t seem to concern supporters.
“He is right about some of those things,” Tammy Lameer of Franksville explained. “Racine does need a lot of work, in my opinion. He supports all law and order, which is what we need in order to run a successful nation.”
“In 2016, I voted for President Trump somewhat reluctantly,” Scott Milheiser of Manitowoc said. “I wasn’t sure, but I could not support Hillary Clinton. But our economy thrived under President Trump, our borders were closing, [and] the world was at peace.”
The southern border became a big talking point for Trump on Tuesday as President Biden announced plans to offer potential citizenship in the coming months to half a million immigrants without legal status in the United States.
“We should not be talking amnesty,” Trump told the crowd. “We should be talking about the invasion instead. This is an invasion.”
The presumed Republican nominee also raised concerns about crime and chain migration.
“People come into our country, but they have to come in legally,” Trump added. “We have to send Joe Biden’s illegal aliens back home where they belong.”
Meanwhile, Democrats used the rally to contrast the scaled-back Foxconn project in Racine County, which Trump promised would be the “eighth wonder of the world” when he was in office, with Microsoft's $3.3 billion investment to build a new data center in the same spot. The project is expected to create 2,300 union construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs over time, which President Biden announced last month.
“Today, Donald Trump returns to the scene of his Foxconn failure for the first time since 2018—when he stuck a golden shovel in the dirt and promised Wisconsinites the eighth wonder of the world," Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler said in a statement. "Trump’s Foxconn boondoggle saw the largest attempted government handout to a foreign company in American history, reflecting perfectly what the MAGA Republican Party is all about: sweetheart deals for wealthy special interests at the expense of everyone else."