Donald Trump, who appeared weak-voiced and exhausted, meandered for several minutes while speaking at the Detroit Economic Club, at one point even insulting the city itself while implying that the alleged bad things about it will go national should he lose the election.
“The whole country will be like — you want to know the truth? It’ll be like Detroit. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president,” Trump said, referring to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan tweeted in response to Trump’s speech, “Detroit just hosted the largest NFL Draft in history, the Tigers are back in the playoffs, the Lions are headed to the Super Bowl, crime is down and our population is growing. Lots of cities should be like Detroit. And we did it all without Trump’s help.”
Though the city has an embattled history, city and state leaders have touted the revitalization of downtown, and the city’s population rose for the first time in more than 60 years this year.
Elsewhere in his speech, Trump seemed focused on companies “leaving wherever they may be located” before he referenced “things were coming cylinders, no wings, no nothing, and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle boom” that “reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have.”
In a clip shared on X, formerly Twitter, Trump said in full, “Many countries, they do that, and then all of a sudden you hear that they’re leaving Milwaukee, or they’re leaving wherever they may be located. It’s very sad to see it… and it’s so simple. I mean, you know, this isn’t like Elon with his rocket ships that land within 12 inches on the moon where they wanted to land, or he gets the engines back.”
“That was the first I realized. I said, ‘Who the hell did that?’ I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming — cylinders, no wings, no nothing, and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle, boom.”
“Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right? He’d have eight circles, and he couldn’t fill them up. But then I heard he beat us with the popular vote. I don’t know. I don’t know. Couldn’t fill up the eight circles. I always loved those circles. They were so beautiful. It was so beautiful to look at. In fact, the person that did that was the best thing about… that level of that circle was great, but they couldn’t get people.”
“So they used to have the press stand in those circles because they couldn’t get the people. Then I heard we lost. Oh, we lost. Now we’re never going to let that happen again, but we’ve been abused by other countries. We’ve been abused by our own politicians, really more than other countries.”
Trump’s recent speeches have often been lengthy and rambling, with the presidential candidate frequently wandering off on irrelevant tangents that are difficult to understand. It is immediately not clear what “the Biden circles” are — Some people have speculated he was referring to the social distancing circles used at certain political events in 2020 — or why they couldn’t be filled up, or how they relate to “Elon with his rocket ships.”
The Detroit Economic Club is a non-partisan non-profit that provides an environment to debate social, business, and government issues.