Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is defending Detroit’s heart-breaking poverty, rampant violent crime, and abysmal literacy rates in an effort to push back on former President Donald Trump’s recent remarks.

“As President, Donald Trump failed Detroit,” Whitmer alleged in a post to X on Wednesday that included a video of the governor talking up the Motor City. “Now he has the audacity to talk smack about our city, again.”

In the video shot in Wisconsin, Michigan’s 49^th governor contends “Donald Trump keeps talking smack about Detroit and insulting our union auto workers.”

As President, Donald Trump failed Detroit. Now he has the audacity to talk smack about our city, again. pic.twitter.com/jZWFq1uS4q

— Gretchen Whitmer (@gretchenwhitmer) October 16, 2024

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“Today, Detroit is on the rise – factories getting built, new housing going up, and middle-class jobs created,” Whitmer said. “America would be so lucky to end up like us.

“Detroit represents everything Donald Trump isn’t,” she said. “We’re tough. We have each other’s backs, and we will keep growing our city and making it a great place to live, work and invest.”

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“A failed businessman who has repeatedly sold out American workers and only looks out for his billionaire buddies will never understand what is great about our city,” Whitmer continued. “He’s not like us. Detroit versus everybody.”

Whitmer’s comments come in response to remarks from Trump during an event at the Detroit Economic Club last week in which he told attendees they were “going to have a mess on your hands” if Vice President Kamala Harris prevails in November.

“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president,” he said, prompting backlash from Whitmer, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, and Attorney General Dana Nessel, all Democrats.

The 45^th POTUS doubled down at the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, WJBK reports.

“I’ve been talking about for the last year, about Detroit and how horribly it has been. It’s just horrible because we’ve been talking about Detroit’s coming back for 40 years, and it’s never come back,” he said.

Under Democratic administrations since 1962, Michigan’s largest city has devolved from an economic powerhouse fueled by the automotive industry into a sad example of urban blight and decay as its population has steadily dwindled.

In 2013, Detroit became the largest city in the U.S. to file for bankruptcy, after the state was forced to take control of city government amid a $327 million budget deficit and $14 billion in long-term debt.

Those financial problems, along with abandoned and dilapidated homes, a lack of opportunities and other issues, has contributed to rampant crime and high poverty that continues today.

A recent analysis of the “Safest Cities in America” that examined 182 U.S. cities across 41 key indicators of safety to “determine where Americans can feel the most secure” ranked Detroit nearly dead last, just ahead of last place Memphis.

Over the July 4 weekend, shootings at six separate illegal block parties left three dead and 24 others injured, including one where police recovered more than 100 shell casings at the scene. Crime data analyzed by the Detroit Free Press shows since 2013, there’s been at least 166 shootings involving four or more victims in Michigan, and nearly half took place in Detroit.

Another analysis released in June ranked Detroit 146^th out of 148 cities for the percent of the population living in poverty, just ahead of Flint and Gary, Ind. The same study found Detroit’s unemployment rate was the second worst in the nation, following Flint.

The issue is fueled in part by raging inflation, with Detroit ranked third in the nation among two dozen U.S. metropolitan areas in a study of “cities with the biggest inflation problems.”

Data from a 2024 United for ALICE report shows 171,907 of the city’s 249,518 households do not earn enough to afford a “survival budget” that includes basics like food, rent, child care, and transportation, despite most working full-time.

Those figures equate to 69% of the city’s residents, which includes about 30% living under the federal poverty level.

The crushing poverty is one of many reasons cited by experts for 65.8% of Motor City students missing 10 or more days of school per year. The chronic absenteeism rate, more than double Michigan’s depressing 29.5% rate, ties into embarrassingly low student achievement.

School officials are now working on a plan to pay students to attend after-school literacy classes, as more than half of 8^th graders in the Motor City are two or more years behind.