The Detroit News’ totally impartial politics editor appeared on a far-left podcast on Thursday to trash former President Donald Trump’s electric vehicle policies, and defend companies tied to the Chinese Communist Party.
MeidasTouch, “a pro-democracy news network” that focuses exclusively on promoting Democratic Party talking points, posted a video to YouTube on Thursday that “reveals Donald Trump’s latest lies about Michigan and the auto industry in an interview with the political editor at Detroit News Chad Livengood.”
MeidasTouch co-founder and owner of LA Magazine Ben Meiselas focused the interview on a speech Trump delivered near Detroit in September 2023, noting comments he made about auto workers and the auto industry “that don’t seem to match reality.”
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“There are many times he talks in broad terms that the auto industry in the U.S. is going to go into complete collapse and it’s just not reality,” “expert” Livengood told Meiselas. “He’s kind of actively out trashing the transition to electric vehicles, and then turns around and praises Tesla, and calls those EVs beautiful.”
Livengood, who was billed at the “top Michigan reporter,” then shifted to comments Trump made at a different event in Potterville, a Lansing suburb, last week, noting the speech was delivered just miles from two GM plants focused on EVs.
“Here you have Trump who was trashing the … Inflation Reduction Act, the IRA. But that IRA, that law, is providing a $500 million grant to General Motors to convert (an existing GM plant in Lansing) to an EV plant in the future,” he said. “As we know from the record, the person who cast the tie-breaking vote for the … Inflation Reduction Act was Vice President [Kamala] Harris.”
Livengood also suggested Trump is “tied up in his own trade rhetoric” about the auto industry, pointing to Trump’s plan to use tariffs to encourage EV production in the U.S. Livengood believes conflicts with his opposition to a proposed Gotion EV battery component plant in Big Rapids, Michigan.
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“I kind of raise the question, which is it? You’re either for Chinese investments in manufacturing in the automobile industry in the U.S. or you’re not,” Livengood said. “You can’t be for the assembly plant and not for the parts plant.”
The premise of the video, titled “YIKES! Trump STUNT in Michigan BACKFIRES in HIS FACE …,” conflates Trump’s September speech with more recent comments in Potterville and elsewhere to build a narrative that the 45th POTUS’ stance on EVs is hypocritical.
But the narrative doesn’t seem to match reality.
Trump has repeatedly made clear his issue is not with EVs, but a government-forced, taxpayer-financed transition or mandate that forces Americans to buy vehicles they don’t want and can’t afford.
“Listen, I’m all for electric cars, but not all of them because they don’t go far yet,” Trump said in Potterville, recalling a conversation with Telsa CEO Elon Musk. “But they’re incredible. … You have to be able to buy what you want to buy.”
Trump also discussed how the Biden-Harris administration’s aggressive push to EVs, while cutting energy production from fossil fuels, is a recipe for disaster that can be avoided by increasing domestic oil and gas production.
Vowing to “drill, baby, drill,” Trump aims to significantly lower energy costs for all Americans, and provide the means to meet the massive energy demands that come with both EVs and artificial intelligence technology, he said.
“Listen, Chrysler and General Motors have already gone bankrupt once, but if we allow electric vehicle mandates to be put on this industry by the federal government, they’re going out of business again,” Brian Pannebecker, founder of Auto Workers for Trump 2024, said in Potterville. “We got to fight against that. And this guy standing right here is the only person who will do it. We cannot allow the federal government to put mandates on the auto industry to build electric vehicles when the consumers do not want them.”
Trump’s opposition to the Gotion battery component manufacturing plant in Big Rapids centers on the company’s strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party and slave labor in China, issues that, along with environmental concerns, are driving fierce local opposition. The Gotion plant was made possible by a secretly negotiated $700 million taxpayer-funded economic incentive deal approved by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
“The Gotion plant … would put Michiganders under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “I AM 100% OPPOSED! As your President, I will make America’s Auto Industry bigger and stronger than it has ever been before, PROTECT American Workers, and TERMINATE the Green New Scam.”
Michigan Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra highlighted how Gotion is a “threat to national security” during comments to WKAR, which Livengood cited in a recent column.
“Our governor and the federal government subsidizing Chinese investment in growth in the automobile industry, tell me how that helps automobile workers and the economy of Michigan?” Hoekstra said. “It just doesn’t compute.”
“Under Donald Trump, those subsidies to China will stop,” Hoekstra said. “If we’re going to subsidize and create investment in the U.S. through the government, it needs to be into American companies.”
Pannebecker said in Potterville auto workers understand that reality, even if it’s lost on Livengood.
“The UAW members realize this now, and I’m doing a rally at a different auto plant every week. I started in June. We’re going to go all the way to November and we’re talking to the auto workers as they come off their shift and go into work. And 70 or 80% of are voting for Donald Trump, because they know their jobs depend on it,” he said.