Former President Donald Trump plans to skip the second Republican primary debate in California to deliver a speech to striking autoworkers in Detroit that same night.
The itinerary, which Trump’s 2024 campaign confirmed to CBS News and CNBC, means the GOP frontrunner is choosing to miss debating his Republican rivals for a second time.
Trump eschewed last month’s Fox News debate in favor of appearing in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Though the exact time and place for Trump’s speech was not immediately clear, he reportedly hopes to address hundreds of current and former union members from the auto industry and beyond.
News of Trump’s intended speech came a couple of days after the United Auto Workers labor union announced a strike against Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis with demands over wages and “economic and social justice.”
Asked during a recent interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press” whose side he was on in the auto industry standoff, Trump said, “I’m on the side of making our country great. … The auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership, and their leadership should endorse Trump.”
Shawn Fain, the president of United Auto Workers, has held off endorsing President Joe Biden for a second term but does not appear to be a Trump fan.
“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” Fain said in a statement. “We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”
The second Republican debate is scheduled to take place on the evening of September 27 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
A great deal of resources are being spent on helping Trump combat four criminal indictments, but he remains the frontrunner for the GOP nomination contest with more than 55% support among a large field of competitors, as shown in the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
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