Trump delivers remarks at Detroit Economic Club event

DETROIT (AP) — Donald Trump on Thursday lobbed new complaints about the federal response to a pair of hurricanes that ravaged large swaths of the Southeast, as he again seeks to increasingly turn two deadly storms to his political advantage ahead of the November election.

Watch Trump’s remarks in the player above.

The former president spoke at the Detroit Economic Club, where he offered empathetic messages to people affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which came ashore Wednesday night. Trump also suggested that the federal response had been lacking, particularly in North Carolina, where he alleged the government after Helene had “not done what you’re supposed to be doing.”

“They’ve let those people suffer unjustly,” said Trump, who has for several days promoted falsehoods about the response of President Joe Biden and emergency management officials.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly slammed Trump for spreading misinformation about federal assistance available to victims, including falsely claiming that such assistance is capped at $750. In reality, that is just for immediate needs, the first potential payout rather than the total.

WATCH: Biden gives update on recovery efforts after Hurricane Milton strikes Florida

“That $750 that they’re talking about, Mr. Trump and all those other people know it’s a lie to suggest that’s all they’re going to get,” Biden said Thursday. “It’s just bizarre. They got to stop this. They’re being so damn un-American with the way they’re talking about this stuff.”

Asked if he planned to speak with Trump to urge him to stop, Biden said he wouldn’t, but followed that with a message delivered directly into television cameras: “Mr. President Trump, former President Trump, get a life, man. Help these people.”

Despite the storm, Trump and Harris are visiting key swing states Thursday, using their travel strategically, trying to increase support with key voting blocs who could decide an election expected to be exceedingly close.

In Michigan, where he’s looking to appeal to primarily to blue-collar voters, Trump took a swipe at the city he happened to be campaigning in, suggesting that Detroit was “a mess.”

“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president,” he said of Harris. “You’re going to have a mess on your hands.”

He also used his speech to echo core themes from his 2016 campaign, saying some other countries, especially China, are ripping the U.S. off and taking manufacturing business away. Trump said powerful companies have “raped” the United States and vowed to impose huge tariffs that he said would force other countries to negotiate what they charge on American products.

“They’ve been screwing us for so many years that we’re allowed to get some of that back,” Trump said about charging tariffs from countries.

Economists warn Trump’s proposed tariffs would drive up consumer costs. Trump has also claimed, without providing specifics, that he can use tariffs to reduce the U.S. budget deficit and pay for an expansion of childcare funding, even as he proposes other ideas to end taxes on things like tips and Social Security without saying how he would replace the lost funding.

WATCH: A look at how Trump’s plan to increase tariffs would affect U.S. workers and consumers

But the former president seemed to not understand the difference between the budget deficit and trade imbalances, conflating the two different economic measures as essentially being the same thing.

He noted that the federal government has nearly $36 trillion in total debt, a byproduct of the annual borrowing needed to cover the gap between tax revenues and government spending. Except Trump then seemed to indicate that the debt was a byproduct of the trade deficit with China, which is a separate issue that reflects the difference between how much a country exports and how much it imports.

“We have $36 trillion in debt,” Trump said. “For years and years and years, we’ve been accumulating. We’d have these deficits that are monstrous. We had 5,6,7 $800 billion deficit with China.”

He also claimed that “we had the highest job numbers in my administration” but that isn’t true any longer. The unemployment rate fell slightly lower under Biden — to 3.4 percent early last year, the lowest in a half-century, below 3.5 percent before the pandemic under Trump.

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