WASHINGTON, D. C. - Vice President Mike Pence will visit Ohio on Thursday to participate in the reveal of the Lordstown Motors Endurance All-Electric pickup truck and to deliver a speech, the White House announced Monday. Afterwards, Pence will participate in an event with law enforcement and community leaders before returning to Washington, D. C..
The factory Pence will visit occupies a site where General Motors manufactured the Chevrolet Cruze before shuttering the plant in March, 2019. The plant’s closure in a section of the state that was critical to President Donald Trump’s 2016 Ohio win was a political embarrassment, as Trump told workers during his campaign not to sell their houses because his administration would restore manufacturing jobs to the region.
Pence’s visit was announced on a day when the Cook Political Report’s electoral college ratings shifted Ohio from being a “Likely Republican” state in November’s presidential election to a more competitive “Lean Republican” category. The publication observed that recent polling by Fox News showed a close contest in Ohio, with Trump trailing the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, by two points (43 percent to 45 percent).
After shuttering the plant which employed 4,500 worker two years before its closure, GM in November sold the facility to Lordstown Motors, which said it would initially employ 400 people. The following month, GM announced it would build a new facility in Lordstown to make electric vehicle batteries as part of a joint venture with a South Korean chemical company. The battery plant will create 1,100 jobs.
Trump had denounced GM’s decision to close the plant, and declared its sale to be “GREAT NEWS FOR OHIO!” in statements posted on Twitter.
As the coronavirus pandemic erupted this March, he apparently forgot about the sale as he took to Twitter to demand that General Motors reopen the plant to produce medical ventilators needed to treat coronavirus patients.
“General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!!” the president wrote.
Shortly after the White House announced Pence’s visit, Trump was back on Twitter again. He tweeted “I brought back Cars & Jobs. Will do it again for Michigan, & everywhere else!!!”
Ohio Democratic Party Chair David Pepper responded with a Tweet of his own: “Fact check: Ohio lost both manufacturing and construction jobs in 2019. And no loss hurt more than GM’s abandonment of workers in Lordstown. And what did Trump do? Absolutely nothing. Except take GM’s side and blame the workers. Oh yeah, and he said “it doesn’t matter.”
A statement from Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said Lordstown residents “don’t need a photo op, they need action.” Brown urged Trump to support legislation he’s introduced that would revoke a tax cut on foreign profits for auto manufacturers that ship jobs overseas and give customers a $3,500 discount on U.S. made cars, and a $4,500 discount on U.S. made electric or plug-in hybrids.
“In 2017, President Trump told Lordstown workers, ‘don’t move, don’t sell your house,’ because jobs were coming back to the Valley,” said a statement from Brown. “Then, when GM pulled out of Lordstown, President Trump didn’t lift a finger to help, while his tax bill gave GM a 50 percent coupon to ship jobs overseas. The people of Lordstown have watched the Trump Administration fail them from day one.”
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