Trump returns to campaign trail in Michigan after apparent assassination attempt

FLINT, Mich. — Donald Trump is expected to answer questions during a town hall event in Flint Tuesday night, two days after a man apparently attempted to assassinate the former president on a golf course in Florida.

Trump is scheduled to begin speaking at about 7 p.m. on a stage inside Dort Financial Center, a venue that's traditionally home to a hockey team and can hold about 6,000 people. By 4 p.m., the line to get into the event snaked throughout a large parking lot, with some Trump supporters saying they had already been waiting for multiple hours to get inside.

John Glaser, 65, of Flint wore a shirt with a photo of Trump and the words: "They missed me b****." Glaser criticized Democrats for comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler and calling Trump a threat to democracy.

"Everybody knows it's OK to kill Hitler. But he's not Hitler," Glaser said of Trump.

Secret Service agents opened fire Sunday on a man who was spotted pointing an AK-style rifle through a fence while hiding in the bushes as Trump played golf at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The suspected gunman, Ryan Wesley Routh, was later arrested and the FBI described the incident as an apparent attempt to assassinate the GOP presidential nominee. The apparent second assassination attempt came two months after Trump was shot in the ear on July 14 by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who gained access to an unsecure rooftop near an outdoor Trump rally in Butler, Pa.

Glaser, a veteran, said he has never voted before but will be casting a ballot for Trump in November.

"I don't trust my government," Glaser said. "Never have. And I still don't."

Trump's town hall, his ninth visit to Michigan of the election year, occurs 49 days before the Nov. 5 election and will be moderated by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, according to Trump's campaign. Huckabee Sanders served as Trump's press secretary for two years of his presidency.

Trump's running mate, Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance, made a separate stop in Michigan in Sparta Tuesday.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president this fall, will be back in Michigan Thursday for a virtual event with talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

In a statement about Trump's function in Flint, Democratic U.S. Sen. Gary Peters said Michigan lost more than 200,000 jobs during Trump's first term in the White House. The job numbers were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The only candidate in this race who understands working families is Vice President Harris, who has a plan to lower costs, bring good-paying manufacturing jobs back home, and ensure Michigan workers continue to lead the world in auto manufacturing," Peters said.

Michigan is one of a handful of battleground states that will decide whether Trump or Harris is the president for the next four years.

Trump is the only Republican presidential nominee since 1988 to carry Michigan. He won the state against Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by less than 1 percentage point, 47.5%-47.3%, or about 10,700 votes. But four years later, in 2020, Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden by 3 percentage points statewide, 48%-51%, or about 154,000 votes.

Standing outside the Dort Financial Center on Tuesday, Jim Moss, a 74-year-old Trump supporter from Grand Blanc, said he wasn't sure the Republican would win Michigan this fall.

But gesturing toward the crowd in line behind him, Moss added, "How can he lose?"

Moss said he had previously attended at least 10 other Trump rallies and liked how Trump doesn't "back down from nobody."

Nearby in line, another Trump supporter who identified herself only as Sue, said she was in the crowd for a Trump rally in Waterford Township in February. That event occurred in a frigid airport hangar with temperatures in the low 20s and a bitter wind chill that made it feel like 7 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sue said she lost feeling in one of her fingers during the Trump rally.

"It never came back," the woman said.

Sue contended that Trump's economic message works and that he believes in "old-fashioned values."

Sue was handing out fake $1 trillion bills with Trump's image on them. On the back, words on the bills asked, "The trillion-dollar question: Will you go to heaven when you die?"

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