Watching Trump in Detroit, it's still shocking he's president [View all]

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Watching Trump in Detroit, it’s still shocking he’s president | Opinion

Nancy Kaffer
Detroit Free Press
Updated Jan. 13, 2026, 9:42 p.m. ET


The soundtrack heralding President Donald Trump’s impending arrival at the Detroit Economic Club started, of all things, with Laura Branigan’s “Gloria,” flooding the Motor City Casino’s Soundboard Theater at ear-splitting volume. Both the playlist and the volume, a worker told me, were controlled by the White House advance team.

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When Trump took the stage, promptly at 2 p.m. on Jan. 13, it was to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”; the president stood left of the podium for the full duration of the song, swaying gently, hands clasped and eyes uplifted, basking in applause that never quite swelled to thunder from a crowd that seemed divided about the main event. Some clapped with enthusiasm, laughing at the president's punchlines; others, perhaps, there to bear witness.

Trump led with the old canard that the 2020 election was rigged, and his latest whopper: The 2024 election, in which he won Michigan, was rigged, but only in Michigan’s U.S. Senate election, which former Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers lost to Democratic U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin.

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Sitting in that room, listening to his raw harangue, it's still startling that this man is president of the United States. And that in the first 13 days of this year, America has effectively colonized Venezuela, that an armed U.S. Bureau of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement fatally shot an unarmed citizen in Minneapolis while ICE continues to patrol the city's streets, as protests rage ‒ "fake riots," Trump called them Tuesday ‒ and the administration is halting child care and other aid to desperate families in Democratic states. ..................(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2026/01/13/trump-detroit-speech-venezuela-minneapolis-ice/88156793007/