Detroit, MI
Whitmer defends 'this beautiful city' of Detroit after Trump blasts Michigan's urban 'mess'
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer didn’t hold back at a Tuesday rally for Kamala Harris as she rebuked former President Trump’s comments from earlier this month, in which he claimed that if the vice president assumes office, “the whole country will be like… Detroit.”
Trump’s comments are even more poignant considetring Detroit’s reputation as one of the most dangerous cities for violent crime in the nation.
“I know you all saw what he said about this beautiful city. He called Detroit a failure and a mess, proving he ain’t firing on all cylinders,” Whitmer said before Eminem and former President Barack Obama took the stage to court votes for Harris. “He doesn’t have a clue what the hell he was talking about. And you know what I think? He ought to keep Detroit out of his mouth.”
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and former President Trump (Getty Images)
Last month, during his speech at the Detroit Economic Club, Trump said: “The whole country will be like – you want to know the truth? It’ll be like Detroit.”
“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president,” he said. “A mess.”
In 2018, Detroit had the highest violent crime rate of 2,007.8 incidents per 100,000 people, according to the data from the FBI’s 2018 Uniform Crime Report, making it the only midsize or large city in the U.S. with such a high number.
That year, the city reported 261 homicides and around 13,500 violent crimes, even though its population is less than 700,000. Meanwhile, local officials claim violent crime is down 8% in 2024, and shootings and carjackings have also decreased.
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at the Resch Expo Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Oct. 17, 2024. (Getty Images)
Detroit still faces big problems, like a high unemployment rate and many residents living below the poverty line.
In 2023, the number of homicides fell to 252, the lowest since 1966, but the city has had a changing population. Detroit had nearly 1.7 million residents in the 1960s, but that number dropped to about 620,376 in 2022.
But the data can be hard to verify since the Federal Bureau of Investigation quietly updated its 2022 crime data to show an increase in violent crimes, despite previous data showing violent crimes had fallen that year, which was touted as a victory for the Biden-Harris administration.
Detroit police are currently investigating a double shooting that killed an 18-year-old early Monday afternoon. And just a day after the rally, two men are in critical condition after being shot Wednesday morning near Detroit’s New Center district.
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“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president,” Trump said of Harris. “A mess.” (iStock)
Both candidates are vying to win the battleground state’s vote with the election just two weeks away. On Friday, Trump also made a Detroit rally stop, promising to put “Detroit first,” “Michigan first,” and “America first.”
Trump told supporters, “Your beautiful place, your beautiful city” was “decimated as if by a foreign army.”
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In a statement to Fox News Digital, Team Trump Michigan communications director Victoria LaCivita said: “Like many Americans, President Trump remembers when Detroit was lauded as the gold standard for auto manufacturing success and revolutionized the industry. Detroit has suffered from globalist policies championed by Kamala Harris that have shipped manufacturing overseas. Detroit’s population has dropped over 60 percent since 1960, maintains the third highest homicide rate in the nation, and a poverty rate for full-time workers three times as high as the rest of Michigan. As President Trump emphasized in his speech, his policies will usher in a new era of economic success and stability for Detroit, helping the city reach its fullest potential.”
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
The Detroit Tigers were beaten 5-3 by the St. Louis Cardinals at Comerica Park on Sunday night. Iván Herrera’s two-run single capped a four-run fifth inning for the Cards in the finale of a three-game series.
Iván Herrera’s two-run single capped a four-run fifth inning and the St. Louis Cardinals salvaged the finale of a three-game series with a 5-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Sunday night.
Nolan Gorman, Victor Scott II and Pedro Pagés each scored a run and knocked in another for the Cardinals.
St. Louis starter Kyle Leahy (1-1) gave up two runs and five hits in five innings. Riley O’Brien pitched the ninth for his second save.
Kerry Carpenter led the Detroit offense with his second homer in two days. Tigers starter Keider Montero (0-1) gave up three runs — two earned — and three hits in 4 1/3 innings.
Montero was recalled from Triple-A Toledo on Saturday after Justin Verlander was placed on the 15-day injured list due to left hip inflammation. Verlander had been scheduled Sunday to make his first start at Detroit’s ballpark in a Tigers uniform since the 2017 season.
Colt Keith led off the Detroit third with a single. Leahy retired the next two batters before Carpenter launched a 425-foot drive to straightaway center field to give the Tigers a 2-0 lead.
The Cardinals scored their first two runs in the fifth on Pages’ RBI single and Scott’s squeeze bunt. Herrera smacked his two-out, two-run single off Enmanuel De Jesus.
Javier Báez’s sacrifice fly in the sixth cut the Cardinals’ lead to 4-3. Gorman’s sacrifice fly in the eighth made it 5-3.
Up next
Cardinals: RHP Andre Pallante (1-0, 0.00 ERA) is scheduled to start the opener of a three-game series Monday night at Washington.
Tigers: RHP Casey Mize (0-1, 1.50) pitches the opener of a four-game series Monday night at Minnesota.
MONROE COUNTY, Mich. – Strong storms swept through parts of Metro Detroit Saturday evening, downing trees, toppling power lines and damaging property across Monroe and Wayne counties.
Matt Rose, owner of Rose Tree Service in Monroe County, and his crew hit the ground running to help with the recovery effort.
“Probably about 5:30 in the afternoon the wind started picking up and all you heard was tornado sirens,” Rose said.
The storms didn’t last long — but the damage they left behind tells a different story.
“Within 20 minutes I’d say. It did a lot of damage in 20 minutes,” Rose said.
The storms left behind splintered trees, downed wires and ripped at least one barn to shreds.
Rob Salenbien of Van Buren Township watched the storm destroy what he described as his family’s entertainment space — right before a major family milestone.
“It’s our entertainment place,” Salenbien said. “We were just hosting my family, my mom and dad is inside – their 60th wedding anniversary is coming up on April 30th, we were going to have a party here on May 3rd.”
Salenbien and his family say they are thankful no one was hurt.
As for the cleanup, Rose says crews are still working to finish up damage left by a previous storm — and now they have even more on their hands. He estimates the cleanup from this latest round of storms could take weeks.
“We were still finishing up the last storm of trees broken on houses and stuff like that,” Rose said.
Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.
Detroit Tigers fans get pictures with tiger statue at Comerica Park
Detroit Tigers fans get their picture taken with the tiger statue outside Comerica Park on April 3, 2026 for Opening Day.
To many people, it makes no sense. Here was the seventh game of a 162-game baseball season, the Detroit Tigers had lost four of the six already played, yet seemingly the entire city converged on downtown Friday, April 3, to get into the stadium, or sit outside the stadium, or just hang around the stadium.
They stuffed bars and restaurants. They drank beer despite the early hour. They wore orange or blue clothing and caps with an Old English “D.” There is no way to count how many total people swarmed the streets, or how many of them had called in sick to their jobs to be here.
We call it Opening Day, and in Detroit it is virtually a holiday. Not elsewhere. Other cities don’t make this fuss. To many of them, going wild for the seventh game of the season makes no sense.
And that’s OK.
In fact, it’s perfect.
Far from the only nonstandard tradition
Opening Day made me think about how many things we do around these parts that are uniquely ours, traditions that we cherish but which don’t necessarily travel.
The Dream Cruise. It began as a charity event, and is now is a fixture on the August calendar. But if you tell someone in Boston or San Diego that thousands of people sit in lawn chairs along a busy boulevard to watch old cars drive past, you’ll get laughed out of the room.
The Independence Day Fireworks. Yes, other cities have them. No, they don’t have them in late June. We do. Supposedly we do this because of our proximity to Canada, which celebrates on a different schedule. Of course, Canada Day is July 1, and America’s holiday is July 4, so someone should explain how June got in there.
But, hey, maybe they shouldn’t. It’s our tradition. And that’s what’s important.
Sweetest Day. Hate to break this to area lovers, but that’s not really a thing in the most of the country.
Paczki Day – yes, it’s a way to celebrate Fat Tuesday, but it’s much bigger here in the Midwest than in other regions.
The Charity Preview at the Detroit Auto Show. That’s like the Motor City’s Met Gala, but it doesn’t exist elsewhere. And auto shows in general are not the must-see events they are in our town.
Traditions like throwing octopi at hockey games, singing “born and raised in South Detroit!” chanting “Onward Down the Field” when the Lions score or yelling “DEEE-TROIT BAS-KET-BALLLLLL!” are things you will not witness anywhere else.
And it may be a hot dog everywhere else, but it’s a coney here.
If all of this makes us quirky, well, quirky we should be. Because in a world of increasing homogenization, local traditions are in peril.
A taste for tradition
Consider what the internet and multinational corporations desire. Everyone on the same page at the same time.
Apple wants the whole world to line up at a given hour for the new iPhone. Taylor Swift wants the whole world hanging on her latest release. Local coffee shops get swallowed by chains. Local eateries surrender to fast food.
As someone who travels for work, I can tell you, decades ago when you went to the South, you heard different music on the radio. You went out West, you saw different retail outlets. You felt like an outsider. You felt like you were someplace new and wondrous.
Today, Nashville looks like Austin looks like Raleigh looks like Phoenix. There’s your P.F. Chang’s next to your Cheesecake Factory. There’s your Best Buy alongside your Costco. The goal of global economies is scale, big numbers, national – even international – audiences. Everyone wants to be the Super Bowl.
But what of the joy of regional customs? Local traditions? The food you can only get here, the music you can only hear there. As the internet shrinks our distance, it also fades our individuality.
When I was a kid in Philadelphia, they had a parade every New Year’s Day, where string bands marched and people wore these crazy costumes, painted their faces, and competed in different categories. It was called the Mummers Parade, and in my youthful naivete, I thought every city did this. Later I realized it was unique to Philly, and in fact, many outsiders found it silly.
Well, as Paul McCartney sang, it isn’t silly at all. Local color shades who we are. Local activities give us a sense of identity. Local traditions bind us to our hometowns, and our shared memories with neighbors.
So we can ask “Did you go to Opening Day?” around here and people know what we mean. There’s something precious about that. In an age of everyone buying from Amazon and eating at McDonald’s, we should fiercely protect what makes us unique.
So yeah, wearing a “Trammell” jersey or telling your friends, “I’ll meet you at Mario’s before the game for the lobster buffet” may make no sense to outsiders. Good. It’s not supposed to.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.
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