RACINE, Wisconsin: Donald Trump holds a rally in Racine, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, where he will slam Democratic President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy, even as a major local factory that Trump broke ground on six years ago has proven to be a flop.
The Republican former president was in this largely working-class, lakeside city in 2018 to celebrate what was expected to be a $10 billion investment by Taiwanese technology group Foxconn. During his 2017 to 2021 term, Trump touted the facility, designed to produce TVs, as an example of how his “America First” policies had rejuvenated American manufacturing.
But while Foxconn originally forecast 13,000 new jobs at the factory, the company now expects to create only about 1,500 positions. Vacant fields west of downtown Racine, threaded by empty roadways, serve as a local symbol of unmet promises.
The company, which did not respond to a request for comment, previously said that it changed its plans due to a reduction in projected demand for the factory’s products.
“I think people look at it as a joke,” said Nancy Anderson, a 67-year-old retired teacher, while having breakfast at a local cafe.
Trump is expected to speak to supporters at a lakeside park at 3 p.m. local time (2000 GMT). Among the topics he will address, according to the campaign, is how high inflation under Biden has hurt Wisconsin residents.
Foxconn’s underwhelming debut has opened up a line of attack for local and national Democrats who say Trump failed to live up to his economic promises. They are hoping that message resonates in Wisconsin, one of just a handful of states expected to be competitive in the Nov. 5 election.
According to an average of surveys maintained by polling website FiveThirtyEight, Trump leads Biden in Wisconsin by 0.2 percentage points, despite having lost the state in 2020.
The two candidates are competing furiously for every vote. Biden was in Racine last month to tout the construction of a $3.3 billion Microsoft data center in a location where Foxconn was supposed to build part of its manufacturing campus.
“Foxconn turned out to be just that — a con,” Biden told supporters at Gateway Technical College’s Sturtevant campus.
Still, Trump has a solid base of support, with many voters willing to move past Foxconn and some officials publicly saying they are happy that any jobs at all were created.
Anthony Eckman, a 28-year-old who is unemployed, said he was disappointed when a warehouse position he planned to apply for at Foxconn failed to materialize.
But he said his personal finances have worsened under Biden, and he will likely vote for Trump this year, despite sitting out the last election.
“I wish we had better candidates this year, but Biden showed no signs of improving this country in my opinion,” Eckman said. “I think I’m gonna be voting for Trump this year.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Racine is about 40 miles south of Milwaukee, and it is considered politically competitive even by Wisconsin standards. Trump beat the Democratic nominee in both 2016 and 2020 by about 4 percentage points, while former Democratic President Barack Obama narrowly won the county in 2008 and 2012.
Last week, Trump called Milwaukee, where the Republican National Convention will take place next month, a “horrible city” during a meeting with Republicans in the US House of Representatives.
His campaign said he was referring to violent crime and alleged election security issues in the city when he made that comment.
Trump holds rally in Wisconsin city where his promises of new jobs fell short
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Trump holds rally in Wisconsin city where his promises of new jobs fell short
- Still, Trump has a solid base of support, with many voters willing to move past Foxconn and some officials publicly saying they are happy that any jobs at all were created
Bill Clinton says he ‘did nothing wrong’ with Epstein as he faces grilling over their relationship
- “I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” the former Democratic president said
- The closed-door deposition in Chappaqua, New York, marks the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress
WASHINGTON: Former President Bill Clinton told members of Congress on Friday that he “did nothing wrong” in his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and saw no signs of Epstein’s sexual abuse as he faced hours of grilling from lawmakers over his connections to the disgraced financier from more than two decades ago.
“I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” the former Democratic president said in an opening statement he shared on social media at the outset of the deposition.
The closed-door deposition in Chappaqua, New York, marks the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress. It came a day after Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sat with lawmakers for her own deposition.
Bill Clinton has also not been accused of any wrongdoing. Yet lawmakers are grappling with what accountability in the United States looks like at a time when men around the world have been toppled from their high-powered posts for maintaining their connections with Epstein after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.
“Men — and women for that matter — of great power and great wealth from all across the world have been able to get away with a lot of heinous crimes and they haven’t been held accountable and they have not even had to answer questions,” said Republican Rep. James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, before the deposition began Friday.
Hillary Clinton told lawmakers Thursday that she had no knowledge of how Epstein had sexually abused underage girls and had no recollection of even meeting him. But Bill Clinton will have to answer questions on a well-documented relationship with Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, even if it was from the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Bill Clinton in his opening statement said that he would likely often tell the committee that he did not recall the specifics of events from more than 20 years ago. But he also expressed certainty that he had not witnessed signs of Epstein’s abuse.
During a break after two hours of questioning, Democratic lawmakers said that Bill Clinton had tried to answer every question and had not invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Still, Republicans were relishing the opportunity to scrutinize the former Democratic president under oath.
“No one’s accusing anyone of any wrongdoing, but I think the American people have a lot of questions,” Comer said.
Republicans finally get a chance to question Bill Clinton
Republicans have wanted to question Bill Clinton about Epstein for years, especially as conspiracy theories arose following Epstein’s 2019 suicide in a New York jail cell while he faced sex trafficking charges.
Those calls reached a fever pitch late last year when several photos of the former president surfaced in the Department of Justice’s first release of case files on Epstein and Maxwell, a British socialite who was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021 but maintains she’s innocent. Bill Clinton was photographed on a plane seated alongside a woman, whose face is redacted, with his arm around her. Another photo showed Clinton and Maxwell in a pool with another person whose face was redacted.
Epstein also visited the White House several times during Clinton’s presidency, and the pair later made several international trips together for their humanitarian work. Comer claimed the committee has collected evidence that Epstein visited the White House 17 times and that Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s airplane 27 times.
Democratic lawmakers said they also posed tough questions to Bill Clinton about his relationship with Epstein and Maxwell.
“We are only here because he hid it from everyone so well for so long,” Bill Clinton said in his opening statement. “And by the time it came to light with his 2008 guilty plea, I had long stopped associating with him.”
Comer pledged extensive questioning of the former president. He claimed that Hillary Clinton had repeatedly deferred questions about Epstein to her husband.
Bill Clinton went after Comer for calling his wife before the committee, telling him that “including her was simply not right.”
The committee was working to quickly publish a transcript and video recording of her deposition.
Has a precedent been set?
Democrats, who have supported the push to get answers from Bill Clinton, are arguing that it sets a precedent that should also apply to President Donald Trump, a Republican who had his own relationship with Epstein.
“I think that President Trump needs to man up, get in front of this committee and answer the questions and stop calling this investigation a hoax,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, on Friday.
Comer has pushed back on that idea, saying that Trump has answered questions on Epstein from the press.
Trump on Friday expressed remorse at Bill Clinton being forced to testify. “I like Bill Clinton, and I don’t like seeing him deposed,” he told reporters as he departed the White House en route to Corpus Christi, Texas.
Democrats are also calling for the resignation of Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Lutnick was a longtime neighbor of Epstein in New York City but said on a podcast that he severed ties with Epstein following a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.
The public release of case files showed that Lutnick actually had two engagements with Epstein years later. He attended a 2011 event at Epstein’s home, and in 2012 his family had lunch with Epstein on his private island.
“He should be removed from office and at a minimum should come before the committee,” Garcia said of Lutnick.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace questioned Hillary Clinton about Lutnick’s relationship to Epstein during the deposition on Thursday. On Friday morning, Mace joined in calling for the commerce secretary to come before the committee.
“I believe we will have the votes to subpoena him,” Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna said.
