Former President Donald Trump campaigned in Waukesha on Wednesday, May 1, but there was a strong Milwaukee element to his message.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee spent much of his 90-minute speech at the Waukesha Expo Center trying to tear into President Joe Biden’s economic record.
Trump noted the Master Lock plant in Milwaukee recently closed.
“I used to use Master Lock all the time. When I was a little child, I used to do a lot of nice little puzzles; you put ‘em together. I always wanted to see, could I break it? You could, but it was not easy," he said, apparently referring to products known as puzzle locks or trick locks.
Trump continued: "But Master Lock closed down its century-old plant in Milwaukee and sent the jobs to Mexico and China. Does everyone know that?" he asked as the crowd booed.
Trump went on: "Master Lock, that was a staple of your state, and they closed down. That would never have happened with me. I would have told them, ‘If you’re going to do that, that’s fine. But we’re going to pay a 100% tariff on any lock you make to send in. You can’t do that,’” the former President said to cheers.
Master Lock, in a statement last year, said the Milwaukee closing was not a reflection on the Milwaukee workforce, but moving work overseas was "an opportunity to enhance its supply chain, maximize potential growth and maintain competitiveness." The company said nothing about any U.S. policies.
Trump also contended inflation is driving up food prices to the point that the Milwaukee vegan restaurant run by Shana Gray is facing a financial struggle.
Gray then took the stage and said, “None of us can continue to go with the Biden Administration. We definitely need to make this house party over.”
President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign replied that unemployment was higher under the Trump Administration than under Biden, that Trump vastly over-promised on the Foxconn development in Racine County, and that Trump wants to cut taxes again to help billionaires.
The Biden/Harris campaign held a Wednesday morning news briefing in downtown Waukesha, mainly to highlight Trump’s boasts that his Supreme Court nominees helped end Roe vs. Wade protections for abortion rights. But at that morning event, Danielle Scampini Linn of the Motherhood for Good group said that women need fundamental freedom to control their bodies and more pro-family economic policies that conservatives generally oppose.
“Things that would actually support families like mine would be universal pre-K (kindergarten) child care, bringing back the child tax credit. All of these things that would help from a fiscal perspective, but also would help create the world I want my children to grow up in," Scampini Linn said.
Scampini Linn said common sense gun reforms would also help families. She spoke a couple of hours before police in Mount Horeb, west of Madison, killed an armed juvenile male who law enforcement says was threatening a school.
