Trump to Deliver ‘Major Policy Speech’ at YSU Monday

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Republican president nominee Donald Trump will return to the Mahoning Valley Monday for a speech at Youngstown State University, according to the campaign’s website.

Trump, who is scheduled to speak at 2 p.m., stopped at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna Township March 14, the night before the Ohio primary. Trump lost the statewide vote to Gov. John Kasich but won Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties, with several thousand Democratic or unaffiliated voters taking Republican ballots.

Monday’s event will be held in Kilcawley Center, where about 500 people will be able to attend, said Shannon Tirone, YSU associate vice president for university relations. As of this posting, no ticket information has been released.

“When Trump saw that 21,000 Democrat and Independent voters became Republicans in Mahoning County, Trump tweeted a message that he would visit us soon,” Mark Munroe, Mahoning County Republican Party chairman, said in an email last night. “True to his word,” the GOP nominee will deliver “a major policy speech highlighting the many reasons” Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton “should never get the keys to the White House,” he said.

“As Trump has pointed out during the campaign, Clinton may be the most dishonest, ethically challenged candidate of all time,” Munroe said.

“The fact that he’s coming here, to make a major policy statement, reinforces just how important the Valley is to this campaign,” he continued. “Hillary wants to talk about where Trump ties were made; Trump wants to talk about fixing the country.”

Clinton, who stopped at East High School last month during a bus tour following the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, has pounded Trump, who has boasted that he will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, on the fact that many Trump-branded products are made overseas.

“Trump likes to talk about putting America first, but he never did that as a businessman. Trump outsourced his own business products instead of making them in Ohio factories or anywhere else in the United States,” David Betras, Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman, said. “I hope he’s here to explain himself, because he can’t make America great again if he doesn’t make things in America.”

Trump’s visit comes as he has struggled in the weeks since the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Several polls show him trailing Clinton following what was generally viewed as a successful convention by the Democrats and several controversies including his feuds with a Gold Star family and members of his own party.

This week, he called President Obama and Clinton, a past secretary of state under Obama, “co-founders” of the Islamic State and made remarks many critics interpreted as inciting violence against Clinton.

Politico reported last night that the Trump campaign and top GOP officials planned what one individual characterized as a “come to Jesus” meeting today in Orlando to discuss Trump’s campaign. Several leading Republicans and business leaders have come out recently to say they would not support the GOP nominee and 50 Republican former national security officials issued an open letter this week calling Trump dangerous and unqualified to be president.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.