The Harris campaign attacked former President Trump for campaigning on Tuesday in Howell, Mich., a city with historic ties to the Ku Klux Klan, which also was the setting of a white supremacist demonstration last month, where attendees expressed support for the former president.
The Harris campaign’s Michigan communications director, Alyssa Bradley, criticized the former president for “choosing to rally in a town that was historically known as ‘the KKK capital of Michigan.’”
“This event on “crime and safety’ isn’t a dog whistle from Trump — it’s a bullhorn,” Bradley said in a statement Monday, referring to Trump’s Tuesday event.
“His visit underscores the core choice in this election — between a prosecutor and a criminal, someone who has spent her life making communities safer and someone who encourages violence, and someone who will build a future where all Michiganders can get ahead and someone who wants to take us back to the days of the KKK,” Bradley later added.
The town has long been associated with the KKK, in large part as a result of meetings that Robert Miles, a former Michigan Grand Dragon of the KKK, held at his nearby farm many decades ago. The city has worked to distance itself from that reputation, but it occasionally faces obstacles.
In Howell last month, about a dozen protesters marched through the city’s downtown, waving flags with white supremacist slogans while chanting in support of the former president.
Just a few miles away on the same day, demonstrators displayed flags with antisemitic messaging and the term “KKK” written on it over the side of a highway overpass. In videos, protesters were captured chanting, “We love Hitler. We love Trump.”
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Article URL : https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4837311-trump-rally-michigan-harris-criticizes/