Carney on ‘Kudlow’: Trump Showed Last Night Why He’s the GOP Frontrunner

Former President Donald Trump’s speech in Michigan yesterday to striking autoworkers showed why he’s the frontrunner for the Republican Party’s nomination and not the presidential hopefuls at Wednesday’s GOP debate, Breitbart Economic Editor John Carney told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow.

In a post-debate panel discussion with Kudlow on Thursday, Carney noted that the Republican candidates at yesterday’s debate still struggled to present a coherent economic message.

“Frankly, they really should have driven home the point on inflation a lot more,” Carney said. “There are so many issues that tie back to inflation.”

Because Wednesday’s debate was hosted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, the legacy of the Gipper was invoked throughout the night. Carney, however, said that none of the candidates was able to thread the needle on inflation the way that Reagan did during his 1980 campaign against incumbent President Jimmy Carter.

“I was just reading Ronald Reagan from back in 1980,” Carney said, “where he explained to people very well that interest rates were so high because inflation was so high. Housing was unaffordable because interest rates were so high. These are very important points to draw the connections for voters. Hey, you know why you can’t afford a house right now? Because interest rates are so high. You know why interest rates are so high? Because Bideninflation drove them so high. Hey, we’re having a strike of UAW workers. Why are they striking? Because Bideninflation drove their wages through the floor.”

“These are points that a Republican candidate can very easily make. I didn’t hear any of them really making that point,” he concluded, while noting that Vivek Ramaswamy was the candidate with the most coherent economic messaging.

Yesterday, while the second-string GOP candidates debated at the Reagan Library, the frontrunner Donald Trump was holding a rally with striking autoworkers in Macomb County, Michigan, the home of the famous “Reagan Democrats.”

Carney said that his favorite line of the night “didn’t come from the debate stage,” but rather from Trump’s speech to the autoworkers who are striking in large part due to Bidenflation’s devastation of their wages and to Biden’s electric vehicle mandates decimating their jobs. In fact, Trump’s rally was held at a local manufacturer in Clinton Township that makes components for the internal combustion engine that will be rendered obsolete with the transition to EVs.

Carney highlighted Trump’s statement that, “Under the Trump administration, gasoline engines will be allowed, and sex changes for children will be banned.”

“This was a great line,” Carney said. “It brought together the economic issues facing the country, and it brought together the cultural issues we’re facing in one sentence. Nobody on that stage can rival that. That’s why he’s the frontrunner right now.”

Indeed, as Carney noted in his post-debate analysis on Breitbart:

Donald Trump sang the praises of American autoworkers in a speech in the battleground state of Michigan Wednesday night, creating a stark contrast between the former president and rivals for the Republican nomination who were debating in California.

“I want to begin this evening by saluting these truly great Americans who do not get the credit they deserve,” Trump said.

The tone of Trump’s discussion of autoworkers was very different from what listeners heard from the Republicans at the official GOP debate in the Reagan Library in California.

Carney noted in particular Trump’s contrast to Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC)’s overtly hostile rhetoric towards striking United Auto Workers (UAW) members and his dismissive and disdainful response to their request for a pay raise to offset the cost-of-living increases they incurred due to inflation.

Trump, on the other, offered the autoworkers something they seldom hear from a Republican politician: solidarity.

Carney wrote:

Trump addressed his remarks to the “welders, assembly line workers, machine operators, forklift drivers, pipefitters, tool and dye makers, mechanics, electricians, technicians, and journeymen.”

“We love being with you,” Trump said. “You love this country. You built this country. And you are the ones that make this country run.”

While some of the other Republican hopefuls at the Reagan library were not as critical of auto workers as Sen. Scott was, none offered the full-throated praise that Trump did. Most limited their support for the workers to oppose subsidies and mandates for electrification of the U.S. auto fleet.

“I put everything on the line to fight for you,” Trump said. “I have risked it all to defend the working class from the corrupt political class that has spent decades sucking the life, wealth, and blood out of this country. That’s why I’m here tonight to lay out a vision for a revival of economic nationalism.”

It is hardly a surprise that the working-class Reagan Democrats of Macomb County are now called the Trump Democrats.

Rebecca Mansour is a Senior Editor-at-Large for Breitbart News and a proud native of Metro Detroit. Follow her on X at @RAMansour.