(WWJ) — Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is set to speak at the Oakland County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner Wednesday night in Novi.
More than three years after former president Donald Trump commuted Kilpatrick’s prison sentence, the ex-mayor-turned-minister has now endorsed Trump in the race against presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Ahead of his speech at the Suburban Showplace Wednesday, Kilpatrick spoke with WWJ’s Darrylin Horne about why he supports Trump and what life has been like since his release from prison.
Kilpatrick was convicted on conspiracy, extortion and other corruption-related charges in 2013. He served eight years in federal prison on a 28-year sentence before his sentence was commuted by then-President Donald Trump in January of 2021.
While Kilpatrick said he is “eternally grateful” for Trump’s decision to commute his sentence, his support goes well beyond that — he believes in his policies
“I support him because he’s right on the issues I care about,” Kilpatrick said. “These are personal decisions for everybody in America. If you are voting because you’re a woman and you want to see a woman, you have a clear candidate. If you are ethnic or Black and you’re voting because somebody’s Black, you identify with that, you want to vote on identity politics reasons, then you have a candidate. If you’re voting because he’s a white man, then you’ve got a candidate.”
“But I kinda vote because of gas, groceries, public policies, criminal justice reform,” Kilpatrick said. “There actually has to be a conversation about the expansion of the economy — opportunities for entrepreneurship; reduction of the simple costs and everyday costs that you have; access to healthcare and all these different things,” Kilpatrick said.
Kilpatrick said he also votes for foreign policy, saying “I think it matters who walks in the room” with other world leaders, noting he believes “we’re on the brink of war right now” and feels Trump would be the best candidate to have in the White House amid global tensions.
Kilpatrick acknowledged that Trump’s personality “rubs a lot of people the wrong way,” but said he doesn’t let that bother him emotionally.
“I’m different; I grew up in politics and I’ve met people in politics and have worked with people who are the worst people — I’m talking about straight, what somebody would call a ‘B-hole’ — but they were great legislators. And then I know people who are the nicest people in the world and they couldn’t legislate themselves out of a car,” he said.
In addition to his thoughts on Trump and the political landscape, Kilpatrick also addressed what he calls “misinformation” regarding the court-ordered restitution he owes, as well as what he thinks of the progress the city of Detroit has made over the last decade.