Trump to Abandon One Washington for Another in Saturday Rally

• April 28 2018
• Daniel Flatley

Donald Trump will address supporters at a rally in Washington, Michigan, on Saturday night while members of the media gather in the other Washington -- the nation’s capital -- for an annual gala that sitting presidents have typically attended.

Donald Trump will address supporters at a rally in Washington, Michigan, on Saturday night while members of the media gather in the other Washington -- the nation’s capital -- for an annual gala that sitting presidents have typically attended.

For the second year, the president will skip the White House Correspondents Association dinner in favor of an event with his base -- this time, in a town on the northern outskirts of metropolitan Detroit.

Trump is expected to use the event to counter-program a night designed to celebrate a press corps he often disparages as dishonest and part of a “witch hunt” against him and his administration. He’s likely to draw a contrast between the people on hand at Total Sports Park, a soccer complex, and those gathered in formal attire back in the city he calls “The Swamp.”

“Looking forward to being in the Great State of Michigan tonight,” Trump said Saturday in a Twitter message as his motorcade prepared to roll toward the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia. “Major business expansion and jobs pouring into your State.”

The event, Trump noted, “will be live on T.V.”

Tariff Moves

Trump visited Macomb County, where Washington is located, days before the 2016 election, and went on to win the state of Michigan to help clinch an upset over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The president on Saturday is likely to tout his administration’s tax cuts and efforts to reform trade, including with tariffs on imported steel and aluminum and a proposal to slap duties on a wide range of Chinese products, designed to shore up U.S. manufacturing.

The rally will cap off a mixed week for Trump, with the highlight being Friday’s historic meeting of the leaders of North and South Korea that could bring an end to a seven-decade war. Planning is under way for Trump to follow South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in with his own summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

At the same time, however, legal woes for Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen continued to mount, fueling suggestions he may begin cooperating with investigators looking into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Reagan’s Call

Trump distanced himself from the attorney by saying that Cohen handles only a “tiny, tiny little fraction” of his legal work. But he waded deeper into a scandal involving adult film star Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels, by saying in a free-wheeling interview with Fox News on Thursday that Cohen “represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal.”

In 2017 Trump became the sitting president to miss the black-tie correspondents’ gala, billed as a celebration of the First Amendment and fundraiser for journalism scholarships, since Ronald Reagan in 1981. Reagan, recuperating from a gunshot wound to the chest sustained during an assassination attempt outside a Washington hotel, made remarks by telephone. He famously quipped that “when somebody tells you to get in a car quick, do it.”

Still, Trump has encouraged members of his staff to attend Saturday’s dinner and will be represented by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.