BIG RAPIDS (WWJ) — With Tuesday marking 10 weeks until Election Day, the campaign blitz in the key state of Michigan continued as Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance spoke to supporters at a family horse farm in Big Rapids, about an hour north of Grand Rapids.
Among the first issues Vance addressed was the job market, attempting to blame Harris and the Biden administration for the country's economic struggles. He said Harris is "undoing the incredible work that Donald Trump did" to shore up American manufacturing jobs.
Vance began by saying "last week the biggest heist in American history happened right under Kamala Harris's nose."
"Somebody stole 818,000 jobs that she and Tim Walz had been bragging about," Vance said, referencing a report last week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Where'd they go?"
The bureau's annual benchmark review of employment data suggested there were more than 800,000 fewer jobs in March of this year than were initially reported.
While the benchmark review can sometimes show fewer jobs than initially reported, this was the largest revision since 2009, according to CNN.
"You may not have heard this because our friends in the back, the media, doesn't like to talk about it. But what really happened is this — the Harris administration had to admit that more than a quarter of all the jobs that had supposedly been created last year were actually fake; they never existed," Vance said.
"It was the biggest revision to the job numbers since the financial crisis back in 2008 and 2009. In other words, what it means is, they're cookin' the books to hide how bad the economy really is under Kamala Harris," he claimed.
He "promised" the crowd that one job is "definitely gonna vanish" on Election Day — "that is when we tell Kamala Harris 'you're fired' and send her back to San Francisco," he said.
Ahead of JD Vance's visit, Congresswoman Hillary Scholten (MI-03), State Representative Carol Glanville, and Mary Sluiter, UFCW Local 951 member, held a press conference in Grand Rapids to highlight what they said is Trump-Vance's "dangerous Project 2025 agenda that would raise costs for working families," as to highlight Vice President Harris' plan to lower costs for working families in Michigan.
Michigan lost over 280,000 jobs under Trump, according to the Harris campaign, which asserts that Trump handed out tax breaks to companies that moved jobs overseas. In a news release, the Harris campaign said a second Trump presidency would be even worse, spiking costs and raising taxes on Michigan families by nearly $4,000 per year.
In stark contrast, the Harris campaign said Harris and Gov. Tim Walz are running to make sure Michiganders don't just get by — but get ahead – bringing down housing costs, addressing corporate price gouging to lower prices at the grocery store and taking on Big Pharma to continue bringing prescription drug prices down for everyone.
"Donald Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and JD Vance had his career bankrolled by hedge fund billionaires from Silicon Valley… We all know what their campaign is about: enriching themselves and giving handouts to their billionaire backers," said Scholten. "Vice President Harris knows that costs are still too high, and she put forward a comprehensive plan to make things more affordable for families. On the other hand, Donald Trump and JD Vance are running on a Project 2025 agenda that'll raise costs on middle-class families while giving more tax breaks to the ultra rich, and America's biggest corporations. [Trump] put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block. He's going to end the Affordable Care Act and raise the cost of prescription drugs and insulin, reversing the gains that we have made."
"Make no mistake: middle-class voters will decide this election, and we will stand behind the candidate who stood up for us," added Mary Sluiter, UFCW Local 951 member. "[Vance] and Trump's Project 2025 is so anti-worker they're both trying to run away from it. To be clear, Project 2025 would eliminate public sector unions, strip protections for workers to unionize, and even allow employers to not pay overtime to workers who have earned it... [Harris] has led our nation as Vice President as part of the most pro-union, pro-worker administrations in history. There's a reason nearly every major union has endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket: it's because Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have fought for workers' rights their entire careers."
Trump is scheduled to speak in Potterville, a small town near Lansing, on Thursday, the same day Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will campaign for his wife in Grand Rapids.
