Donald Trump's rally Tuesday night at at Macomb Community College in suburban Detroit was not heavily attended according to one MSNBC guest who did take the time to show up.
During an appearance on MSNBC on Wednesday morning, former White House Director of Communications Jennifer Palmieri was asked how the president was received by the crowd as he marked the 100th day of his second term in office.
After watching clips from the evening's proceedings, which CNN characterized as "familiar grievances, an ebullient crowd and a difficult task ahead," co-host Jonathan Lemire commented, "There is an awareness, I'm told, from senior advisers that, look, they see the poll numbers. They're not panicking but there's a concern here about the impact the tariffs are having on the economy and then on Trump's political standing."
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"So Jen Palmieri, you were there in Michigan last night for the president's event and there aren't too many sort of old political cliches that apply to. Donald Trump because he has broken so many molds and norms but this one, I think does: if you're explaining, you're losing," Lemire prompted his guest. "And he last night [he] had to explain and defend and spin these tariffs because he knows there's already been some impact."
"Yeah, one of the most telling things I saw in Michigan was an ad for a local furniture store yesterday that was advertising tariff-busting prices," she responded. "So it, you know, it's something and also a lot there was there was a UAW worker there last night that spoke, that's a big supporter of President Trump and spoke in favor of it and said, we have to like, hang in there because this is worth it in the in the long term."
"The tariff section was not the section of the speech that got a good applause last night," she continued. "And I would say, you know, I saw some of our colleagues there that were covering the rally, and one of them told me, 'Don't focus on the crowd size.' But who focuses on crowd size? Donald Trump focuses on crowd size and this was the far and away the smallest rally I've ever been to of Trump."
"Doesn't mean there's still not a lot of support for him, but there was definitely a dutiful element to the to the rally, both in his delivery and the crowd's responses," she elaborated. "You know, they wanted to hear about immigration –– that's what got them excited –– they wanted to hear about him saying that, you know, he's going to put a stop to gender nonsense. That got a good response. 'Crooked Joe' was the biggest applause line of the night, it was not anything that he had to say about the economy."
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