Michigan’s Kamala Harris urges young people to vote: ‘Now is the time’

The chants continued for several minutes before the protesters were escorted out of the demonstration by the authorities.

Amid more than a year of fighting in the Middle East, Trump has appealed to Arab Americans and Muslim Michiganders to support his candidacy. He brought figures from these communities to the stage in his Novi rally this past weekend.

In a warm-up speech at Monday’s meeting, Wayne County Deputy Assad Turfe called the election of Harris the best shot for peace in the region, arguing that Trump “would only bring more chaos and suffering.”

CHIPS debate

Harris made two other stops in Michigan earlier Monday to discuss manufacturing policy — a union facility in Macomb County and Hemlock Semiconductor near Saginaw.

The Biden-Harris administration announced last week a grant of 325 million dollars for Hemlock to build a new production facility for the production and purification of semiconductor-grade hyperpure polysilicon. The project is expected to create nearly 180 manufacturing jobs along with more than 1,000 temporary construction jobs.

The award came through the federal CHIPS and Science Act, which Biden signed into law in 2022 in an effort to increase domestic production of microchips and deter Chinese market dominance.

Trump criticized the bipartisan CHIPS Act on Friday, calling it “so bad” for the country.

“We put up billions of dollars to get rich corporations,” but “all you had to do was charge them tariffs,” Trump said in an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, repeating his controversial claim that taxing imports would spur domestic mass production.

“You tariff it so high that they’re going to come and build their chip companies for nothing,” Trump added.

Various US industries are still heavily dependent on imported chips, especially those made in Taiwan, the world’s leading producer.

But the CHIPS Act helps fund “just the kind of work that happens here,” Harris said Monday after touring Hemlock. “We created tax credits for the private sector to do this work,” she added. “It’s good work.”

Social security insolvency

As Harris worked to implement the youth vote in Ann Arbor, she and Walz also talked to what he called the “gray hairs” of the liberal city.

Harris claimed that Trump will “cut” Social Security. “In fact, economists say he’s going to bankrupt Social Security in the next six years,” she said.

Trump has pledged to “fight for and protect Social Security” and has not proposed any direct cuts. But his various proposals to cut taxes, implement tariffs and deport immigrants would “worsens dramatically Social Security’s finances,” according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The Social Security trust fund is already expected to go insolvent in 2035. Trump’s plans would accelerate the projected insolvency timeline to fiscal year 2031 — six years after he took office, according to the analysis.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projects that Harris’ plans would, too increase the federal deficit — but not as steep as Trump’s and “wouldn’t have major effects on Social Security’s insolvency.”