GREENSBORO, N.C. — Speaking to a raucous crowd inside of the Special Events Center at the Greensboro Complex on Tuesday night, Republican nominee for president Donald Trump touched briefly on the economy while hurling attacks at Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump blamed the Harris-Biden administration for the decline in manufacturing jobs in North Carolina.
"Kamala Harris sold you out and allowed jobs to be plundered by other countries," Trump said. "North Carolina lost more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs, including 60% of their furniture manufacturing jobs."
In total, North Carolina lost over 350,000 manufacturing jobs from 1993-2022, according to the North Carolina Department of Commerce, but most of those jobs were lost before Joe Biden took office in 2021.
That said, the Institute for Supply Management's measure of economic activity in the manufacturing sector showed decline for 13 consecutive months from Nov. 2022 to Nov. 2023 "as consumer spending slowed and demand for manufactured goods softened."
In 1993, Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing ranked third among manufacturing subsectors in North Carolina in terms of total employment with 10.3% of the workforce. That number dropped to 7.4% in 2022, according to the Department of Commerce.
Manufacturing jobs are down across the United States, according to the Economic Innovation Group.
"We will end the looting, ransacking, raping and pillaging of North Carolina ..." Trump told his supporters. "Four more years of Kamala Harris, and North Carolina will be an economic wasteland."
Toward the end of his time speaking, Trump said he would ask Congress to enact a law that gives anyone who burns an American flag a mandatory one-year prison sentence.
Trump also took time to lambast CBS and 60 Minutes, which he has accused of deceitfully editing an October 7 interview with the Vice President.
"It's major election interference," Trump said of the interview. "It's fraud."
Trump threatened legal action against CBS for what he called "the biggest scandal in broadcast history."
Trump also touched on border security. At one point, he suggested enacting a policy that would give the death penalty to any person who enters the United States illegally and kills a U.S. citizen or a law enforcement officer.
The former President also promised to end Sanctuary Cities.
Harris, whom Trump described several times as "a stupid person" and someone with a "low IQ," did not have a campaign event Tuesday night. She is scheduled to be in Pennsylvania on Wednesday for a CNN town hall event.
Harris' running mate Tim Walz, whom Trump described as "the stupidest man I've ever seen run for office," was in Madison, Wisc. along with former President Barack Obama on Wednesday.
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