CHICAGO (NewsNation Now) — Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden campaigned in the battleground state of Michigan Wednesday, while his opponent’s running mate Vice President Mike Pence visited Pennsylvania.
Biden traveled to the Detroit suburb of Warren to outline a plan to boost U.S. manufacturing, and potentially tax companies that move U.S. jobs overseas.
Biden pledged to rewrite tax codes to reward U.S. companies that invest in domestic manufacturing while imposing penalties on those that send jobs to other countries. He spoke outside a United Auto Workers regional office in Warren, flanked by an array of U.S.-made cars including Fords, Jeeps and Chevrolets.
“I’m not looking to punish American businesses but there’s a better way,” Biden said. “Make it in Michigan. Make it in America. Invest in our communities and the workers in places like Warren.”
He noted that a local General Motors transmission plant closed last year despite Trump’s pledges to protect Michigan jobs, adding, “I bet the workers around here weren’t all that comforted by Trump’s empty promises.”
Later Wednesday, Biden visited a clothing shop in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Detroit. Last week, he went to Wisconsin and was followed quickly by running mate Kamala Harris, who held Labor Day events there. Biden hit Pennsylvania during the holiday and will be back on Friday.
Meanwhile, Pence campaigned in Murrysville, Pennsylvania.
He visited Cornerstone Ministries, a non-denominational church in the municipality roughly 20 miles east of Pittsburgh. The vice president spoke at a roundtable with anti-abortion advocates before touring PennEnergy Resources Natural Gas Producing Well in Freedom. There, he spoke at a “Workers For Trump” event focused on jobs.
“I don’t have to tell most of you gathered here when it comes to energy, President Donald Trump has been a champion for American energy independence,” Pence told the crowd. “We ended the war on coal. We unleashed American energy and now the United States is a net exporter of energy for the first time in 70 years.”
President Donald Trump held an afternoon news conference at the White House to announce 20 additional candidates in the event of a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Both Trump and Biden will visit Pennsylvania Friday. They’re expected to attend a Sept. 11 memorial in Shanksville, the site of the 2001 crash of United Flight 93.