The chants continued for several minutes before protesters were escorted out of the rally by authorities.

As more than a year of fighting rages in the Middle East, Trump is appealing to Arab Americans and Muslim Michigan residents to support his candidacy. At his rally in Novi last weekend, he brought personalities from these communities to the stage.

In a warm-up speech at Monday’s rally, Wayne County Executive Assad Turfe called Harris’ election the best chance for peace in the region and argued Trump would “only bring more chaos and suffering.”

CHIPS debate

Harris made two other stops in Michigan early Monday to discuss manufacturing policy – a union factory in Macomb County and Hemlock Semiconductor near Saginaw.

The Biden-Harris administration last week announced a $325 million grant for Hemlock to build a new manufacturing facility to produce and purify semiconductor-grade, high-purity polysilicon. The project is expected to create nearly 180 manufacturing jobs and more than 1,000 temporary construction jobs.

The award came through the federal CHIPS and Science Act, which Biden signed in 2022 to boost domestic production of microchips and deter Chinese market dominance.

Trump criticized the bipartisan CHIPS law on Friday, calling it “so bad” for the country.

“We spent billions of dollars on rich companies,” but “all you had to do was charge them tariffs,” Trump said in an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, repeating his controversial claim that taxing imports boosts domestic mass production would.

“They charge such high tariffs that they come and build their chip companies for free,” Trump added.

Various U.S. industries still rely heavily on imported chips, particularly those made in Taiwan, the world’s top manufacturer.

But the CHIPS law helps fund “exactly the type of work that’s happening here,” Harris said Monday after touring Hemlock. “We created tax credits for the private sector to do this work,” she added. “This is good work.”

Social Security bankruptcy

As Harris worked to reach out to the youth vote in Ann Arbor, she and Walz also spoke to what he called the “gray hairs” in the liberal city.

Harris claimed that Trump would “cut” Social Security. “In fact, economists say he will bankrupt Social Security in the next six years,” she said.

Trump has vowed to “fight for and protect Social Security” and has not proposed any direct cuts. However, his various proposals to cut taxes, impose tariffs and deport immigrants would “dramatically worsen Social Security’s finances,” according to the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The Social Security Trust Fund is already expected to become insolvent by 2035. Trump’s plans would shorten the projected bankruptcy timeline to fiscal year 2031 – six years after he takes office, the analysis said.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget predicts that Harris’ plans would also increase the federal deficit — though not as much as Trump’s and “would not have a major impact on the insolvency of the Social Security Trust Fund.”