Former President Donald Trump returns to Michigan on Saturday with both the Republican presidential race and this crucial 2024 battleground altered considerably since his last visit some five months ago.
Then, Trump swooped in for a rally centered around the auto industry’s striking workforce while avoiding his rivals for the GOP nomination, who were gathered in California for the second primary debate. A 2020 election denier’s tumultuous reign atop the Michigan Republican Party had only recently begun. And many were still guessing how Trump’s mounting legal troubles would play out during a presidential race.
Since then, the strike has ended and the top union representing Michigan autoworkers, United Auto Workers, has endorsed President Joe Biden. All but one of the Republicans on the California debate stage – former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley – have dropped out. And the Michigan GOP changed leadership this week amid a dramatic power struggle.
Trump will also be addressing supporters for the first time since a pair of rulings in separate New York cases involving the former president thrust into the spotlight the legal peril he faces on multiple fronts – the latest demonstration of how Trump is navigating a busy court schedule and his campaign calendar.
A New York state judge ruled Thursday that a trial to determine whether Trump falsified business documents to conceal hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels will begin on March 25. Twenty-four hours later, another judge ordered Trump and his companies to pay nearly $355 million for fraudulently inflating his financial statements for a decade.
Trump on his Truth Social platform attacked the judge who determined the financial liability, calling Friday’s ruling “a Complete and Total SHAM.”
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