Topic: Newsmax
The pro-Trump stans at Newsmax tried to create a narrative that Donald Trump supports striking union autoworkers despite his anti-union record as president. After Trump announced he would make a speech in Detroit as counterprogramming to his refusal to participaten in the second Republican presidential debate, Eric Mack hyped his purported solidarity with thet striking workers in a Sept. 17 article:
"The United Autoworkers are being sold down the 'drain' with this all electric car scam," Trump posted Sunday on Truth Social. "They'll be made in China, under Crooked Joe's China First policy. Autoworkers, vote for Trump — I'll make you victorious & rich."
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"If your 'leaders' won't endorse me, vote them out of office, now," Trump's statement continued. "With the Democrats & Crooked Joe calling the shots, you'll be jobless & penniless within 4 years."
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Trump is asking for the autoworkers to back him over Biden.
"Remember, Biden is a crook who has been paid millions of dollars by China, & others," Trump's statement concluded. "He is a Manchurian candidate!!!"
Newsmax did, surprisingly, tell the truth about Trump's visit in a Sept. 26 article by Mark Swanson:
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said Tuesday he sees "no point" in meeting with Donald Trump when the former president visits the Detroit area on Wednesday, saying Trump "serves the billionaire class and that's what's wrong with this country."
Fain made the comments in an interview with CNN, the same day that President Joe Biden joined the striking UAW workers on the picket line in Belleville, Michigan.
Trump is skipping the second GOP presidential debate Wednesday night to meet with a group of mostly retired UAW workers in Macomb County — at a nonunion plant.
That did not go unnoticed by Fain.
"I find a pathetic irony that the former president is gonna hold a rally for union members at a non-union business," Fain said.
A Sepet. 27 wire article previewing Trump's speech noted that he would be speaking at a "non-union auto supplier," but with an added plug stating that "Newsmax will air Trump's speech live and in its entirety Wednesday night, starting at 8 p.m. ET." But Newsmax coverage of the speech itself downplayed or misled about the non-union connection:
- An article by Eric Mack misleadingly stated that Trump spoke to "Michigan's blue-collar workers and United Auto Workers union members" and made no reference to him speaking at a non-union shop.
- Another article by Mack stated that Trump gave "a campaign stump speech in Clinton Township, Michigan, which aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax"; the only reference to unions in the article was a mention that Trump claimed that "Biden is pandering to the United Auto Workers labor union bosses."
Newsmax did an interview with Trump after the speech, which Mack dutifully wrote up. Again, he misled about Trump's union statnce:
Former President Donald Trump trashed United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain for choosing to meet with President Joe Biden over him.
"If he didn't want to meet with me, then I don't like him very much," Trump told Newsmax's John Bachman in a backstage interview Wednesday night after Trump delivered a speech to working-class voters in Clinton Township, Michigan, which aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax.
"But that's foolish not to meet. What is he going to do? Meet with Biden? The man doesn't know he's alive. Biden can't put two sentences together. He has no idea what's going on."
A Sept. 28 article by Theodore Bunker about a Newsmax TV interview with the head of the auto parts firm where Trump spoke did admit the company was non-union, but he uncritically peddled the man's claim that there were union workers in attendamce who supportted Trump:
Nathan Stemple, the president of the automotive parts manufacturing business where former President Donald Trump spoke Wednesday, told Newsmax on Thursday that that "the experience was just one in ten lifetimes for us."
Trump spoke to a crowd of non-union auto workers at Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township, Michigan, the same night that his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination participated in the second GOP primary debate.
Stemple said on " National Report" that "there were tens of thousands of people outside of the rally, all up and down our street, up and down the adjoining streets … that whole experience was just one in ten lifetimes for us."
Actually, many of the purported "union workers" at the rally were ringers.
