Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made a previously unannounced trip to Flint, Michigan, on Wednesday where he took a very brief tour of a water treatment plant and was later chastised by a local pastor for bringing politics into her pulpit.
Advertisement
Trump tried to deliver an address from prepared remarks, where he said he was the person to fix Flint’s water crisis and economic troubles. “There was no question about it”. “She called NBC, ABC. when she got up to introduce me, she was so nervous, she was shaking”, Trump told Fox News. “I figured something was up, really”.
After cutting off Donald Trump during his speech at a church in Flint, Michigan, Rev. Faith Green Timmons stood by her decision on Wednesday as she spoke with the press.
Pastor Timmons, as the Detroit News reported it Wednesday, interrupted to say, “Mr. Trump I invited you here … not to give a political speech”.
A group of some 70 people gathered at the church to hear Trump’s take on how he would approach Flint’s ongoing water crisis that has left many residents without reliable access to drinking water, forcing them to expose themselves to water with unsafe amounts of lead. “It will be fixed quickly and effectively, and Flint will come back”.
“What we pray is that it conveys a fine example of a faithful, intelligent, historically African-American congregation at work, serving and volunteering among the people of Flint as we work through this crises of national impact”. “And then she came up”.
The Pastor also said in comments, “I would not let others make this a platform to disrespect him either”.
“The whole place [Flint] is – not only the water, the water is what – what they did with the water is terrible”, he said, “but the crime rate and all the other problems they have and people want to see – you know when I use the expression, I say, ‘What do you have to lose?”
Mr Trump abruptly ended his speech, which had lasted six minutes.
The New York businessman pivoted from GM’s decades-long declining presence in Flint to Wednesday’s news that Ford Motor Co. plans to move all small vehicle production to Mexico within two to three years.
Democrats have made the Flint water crisis a more prominent part of their campaign than Republicans.
Trump graciously complied but thought there was something a bit odd about the pastor’s demeanor.
Advertisement
An overwhelming 94 percent of black voters view the G.O.P. standard-bearer unfavorably, according to one Washington Post survey Trump’s visit to Flint, a town with a large African-American population suffering from widespread lead poisoning, was intended as a show of minority outreach. “Not give a political speech”.
