'Exhausted' Trump Naps In Michigan Policy Meeting

And Wonkette was there!

Friday night former president Donald Trump participated in a round table discussion in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan, with members of the community, as well as Reps. Mike Rogers (running against Rep. Elissa Slotkin for US Senate) and Byron Donalds.

Or, at least that's the lead I scribbled in notes. It's … technically true. Trump was there, so were Donalds and Rogers, and a handful of people who had some connection to Michigan.

But when Rebecca asked me, “How was it, what happened,” I couldn't answer. And I spent the last few hours going through photos and video of the event and I still can’t really answer that question. What happened? What was the point of all this?

After lumbering through security, I marked my spot on the riser with a step stool. This is common for a lot of photographers. It’s a subtle, unwritten rule among photo and videographers that says, “This is my spot.”

I noticed the guy with Real America's Voice, the pro-Trump pravda internet channel, was doing a live shot. He wore a gold crucifix with an American flag painted inside on his right lapel. He said he had been walking around the area with a Trump hat and getting audible support from people. He also claimed that “gangs” like “Asian triads,” and South American criminals were “invading” and going to “war” with the American gangs. The whole bit was comically absurd.

When the rally finally started, other journalists and the production crew had to tell the terribly inexperienced guy to shut the hell up. He was speaking at full volume into a cheap, Bluetooth earpiece about technical difficulties, seemingly unaware that he was ruining the audio for actual journalists, the production crew, and members of the audience. Members of the Secret Service and private security began eyeballing him, AV crews tried shush him with a finger to their mouths, and I finally leaned over and whispered, “Dude, shut the fuck up.”

Trump was flanked by Donalds and Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a New York-based international securities and investment firm. Donalds seemed to be Trump's chaperone for the evening. He would introduce the other speakers at the table for Trump, and the audience. Donalds would reel Trump in if he started wandering off on a tangent.

Sponsored by Building America’s Future PAC, a shadowy 501(c)4 funded by obscenely rich people like Elon Musk, the town hall was billed as a policy discussion. But it's not exactly clear what policies they were actually discussing.

Lutnick railed against NAFTA, screaming, “LOCK THAT DOOR,” but if their goal is to renegotiate NAFTA, Trump did that with his USMCA agreement, and it's been a failure. If it's healthcare, the policy seemed to suggest that Trump would let anti-vaccine skeptics like RFK Jr. run the Department of Health and Human Services with the help of crackpots on Facebook Groups and junk science schemes. If it’s to revitalize auto manufacturing in the US, their solution doesn’t seem to have gotten past a “concepts of a plan.” If it’s to (further) reduce crime, their solution seems to be to further exempt police from legal liability and encourage them to murder potentially innocent civilians without due process.

The only comprehensive plans for a potential second Trump administration come from Project 2025, and the Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from the former Trump staffers at the Heritage Foundation that spent the last four years lashing it together. Trump's Agenda 47 isn't so much a series of policy proposals as it is highly edited microblog posts shouted awkwardly into a camera from some gaudy room in Doral or Mar-a-Lago.

The whole thing seemed hastily put together. The event space was the floor of an engineering consultant company that utilizes robotics. The audio was so bad that when someone became excited, the mics would pop, prompting Trump to say that whoever was operating the mics shouldn't be paid. The risers and bleachers wobbled, and barricades weren’t connected. This didn’t seem like union work.

At the end of everything, Trump slowly stands up and bobbles to the side of the stage for photo ops. He raises a half-balled fist, and flashes a strained, toothy smile. Lutnick stands awkwardly to the side while Trump babbles at length to another panelist. Was he hoping for a selfie, or a government job?

Rogers, the Republican Senate candidate running against Democratic Rep. Alissa Slotkin for the seat being vacated by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, seemed pissed. He was on the far side of the stage craning his neck towards Trump. He didn’t have a large role during the event, speaking only briefly. Was he hoping for a bigger role?

These questions were left unanswered as Trump left for a Detroit rally — the one where the sound once again was less than perfect, as it cut out entirely for almost 20 minutes while Trump simply paced the stage.

As I was leaving, several UAW members were attempting to change the tire on a large truck. I pulled up next to them and asked if they needed an extra hand, or a flashlight to combat the day's fading light.

“We're all good now,” said one of the men. I recognized him as a panelist during the event.

“I think we got it under control now,” said another man.

“Unfortunately, I don't have any tools beyond a Leatherman,” I joked.

We all laughed. It was a self-deprecating joke that acknowledged their preconceived ideas of journalists, and the absurdity of trying to change a tire with a multi-tool.

“Watch it, now CNN is gonna be watching us,” another said. The joke fell flat.

“Man, it's like, how many UAW Trump guys does it take to change a tire,” the second man blurted out.

We all laughed hard. That was a good joke.