Incredible;Trump visits Dearborn, a hub for Arab Americans, in a last-minute bid to sway voters..See More 👇

DEARBORN, Mich. — Former President Donald Trump made a brief stop in the heavily Arab American city of Dearborn on Friday, calling for an end to conflict in the Middle East but offering no specifics on how he would do so if elected to a second term.

Visiting The Great Commoner coffee shop in Dearborn, Trump used the appearance to make a pitch to voters that are angry with the way the Biden administration has handled Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon.

“We have a great feeling for Lebanon and I know so many people from Lebanon, Lebanese people and the Muslim population, they’re liking Trump and they’ve had a good relationship with him,” he said. “This is it, this is where they are, Dearborn. We want their votes and we’re looking for their votes and I think we’ll get their votes.”

Trump went on to tout polling numbers in Michigan and other swing states before attacking Vice President Harris as an “inferior candidate.”

Both Trump and Harris have Friday night rallies in Milwaukee, part of several stops in the key “Blue Wall” swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin.

Trump has a fraught relationship with Arab and Muslim voters, spending much of the last decade demonizing them. In his first days in office, he signed an executive order that banned travel from majority-Muslim countries, and has expressed support for a similar ban if elected again.

At a rally earlier this year in Wisconsin, he implied a surge of migrants into the U.S. would lead to a terrorist attack similar to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack in Israel, vowing that “we do not need a jihad in the United States of America.”

Now, in a state that he narrowly won by 10,000 votes in 2016 and President Biden won in 2020, Trump is making a last-minute effort to convert a key demographic group to his side.

When asked about conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu about ending conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, Trump criticized current U.S. leadership and said, without offering any details, that he would bring peace to the region.

“We’re gonna bring peace, you’re gonna have peace in the Middle East, but not with the clowns you have running the U.S. right now,” he said. “You have people in the Middle East that aren’t doing their job, and you have people in the U.S. that aren’t doing their job, and when they get it together, when they get it right, you’re gonna have peace in the Middle East.”

Harris is rallying in Wisconsin
In Wisconsin, Harris made stops at a union hall in Janesville, and an event in Appleton before her Milwaukee rally. Speaking to reporters ahead of those stops, Harris addressed the violent language used by Trump in a late-night diatribe against former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, calling the remarks “disqualifying.”

Asked about Trump’s visit to Dearborn, Harris told reporters she had a “significant amount of support” from Arab Americans because of her position on ending the war in Gaza and her commitment to a two-state solution — and because of her positions on economic issues.

“Within that community, there are many issues that challenge folks and that they want to hear about,” she said.

Harris has had her own struggles with Arab American voters stemming from opposition to the war in Gaza. Leaders of the “uncommitted” movement, which grew out of Democratic opposition to President Biden’s policy toward Israel and Gaza, has said it would not endorse Harris for president, but it has urged supporters to “vote against” Trump. Harris’ rallies are often interrupted by protesters upset about the war in Gaza.

Harris and Trump also spent Friday focused on blue-collar workers, which make up a significant portion of the electorate in both states. Together with Pennsylvania — the third of the “Blue Wall” states — Michigan and Wisconsin are home to a higher eligible-voting population of white voters without college degrees than the four other swing states up for grabs.

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At IBEW Local 890 in Janesville — a city that lost thousands of jobs when a GM plant closed in 2009, Harris panned Trump’s record on manufacturing jobs.

“He said Wisconsin would soon be home to a plant that he called … the eighth wonder of the world,” Harris said, referring to a Foxconn factory that was promised but never built. “Typical for a person that is all talk, no walk,” she said.

At a Harris stop in the town of Little Chute, Trump supporters waved flags and signs outside. But there was also a long line of Harris supporters who couldn’t get in to the overstuffed high school gym.

The Harris campaign is trying to run up the score in big cities and college towns, but also trying to lose by less in more rural areas of Wisconsin — like this county that Trump won in 2020.

“Unlike Donald trump I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,” Harris said.

At his rally in Warren, Mich., Trump zeroed in on Friday’s jobs report showing employers added a scant 12,000 jobs in October — a figure that was skewed by an ongoing strike at Boeing and by the impact of Hurricanes Milton and Helene. Trump said the report “proves decisively that Kamala Harris and crooked Joe have driven our economy off a cliff.”

Trump has also been highlighting comments from Biden that sounded like he was calling Trump supporters “garbage.”

Biden won Wisconsin in 2020 by just over 20,000 votes.