Hillary Clinton plans economic speech in Detroit
NEW YORK -- Hillary Clinton will make a speech on the economy on Thursday in Detroit, her campaign announced Sunday.
The speech, according to a campaign aide, will be a "major" address that lays out clearly the differences between Clinton's vision and that of her opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Trump is set to make his own speech on the economy on Monday, also in Detroit.
For the Democratic nominee, the speech on Thursday will cap nearly two weeks of touring battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada and Florida, and speaking about her plans to create jobs through investing in infrastructure, revitalizing American manufacturing and supporting small businesses.
Throughout, Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, have cast Trump as a greedy businessman who has left small businesspeople in the lurch and favored outsourcing over hiring American workers.
"I really would like him to explain why he paid Chinese workers to make Trump ties," she said at a visit to Knotty Tie Co., a Denver-based tie manufacturer, last week. She held up a Trump tie. "It's got his name on it, of course, and, instead of deciding to make those ties right here in Colorado with a company like Knotty."
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll, released Sunday, showed that voters give Clinton a slight edge on handling the economy. Forty-eight percent of those polled said they trust Clinton more on the economy, while forty-six percent chose Trump. In the same poll a month ago, voters were split, forty-five percent for Clinton and forty-five percent for Trump.
"Donald Trump ceded the national conversation on the economy because he was focused on creating the scandal-of-the-hour," said a Clinton campaign aide previewing her speech, "so he's now been forced to schedule a Monday speech in Detroit to try and reclaim standing on what was supposed to be the one sure-fire issue for him in this campaign - the economy."
Trump has dominated headlines since the Democratic National Convention, after he attacked Kzhir and Gazala Khan, the parents of a slain Muslim soldier, refused to support House Speaker Paul Ryan -- who he later endorsed -- and repeatedly claimed that he saw video of a cash transfer from the United States to Iran. His missteps provided fodder, and cover, for Clinton, who has faced nagging questions about her private email server and her trustworthiness this week.
Paul Manafort, Trump's national campaign manager, told Fox News on Sunday that he is "comfortable" that the narrative surrounding Trump will return this week to "where it belongs, which is comparing the tepid economy under Obama and Clinton versus the kind of growth economy that Mr. Trump wants to build."