Vance makes offer to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer: Want the National Guard in Detroit?

HOWELL, Mich. — Vice President JD Vance offered to ship National Guard troops to Detroit during a Wednesday rally at a Livingston County stamping plant.

"Gretchen, we are happy to send the National Guard to Detroit, Michigan," Vance said, referencing Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Vance added: "Part of making this country work for you all is making sure you’re safe in your communities and safe in your streets.”

Detroit had the second-highest violent crime rate among major U.S. cities in 2024. It ranked behind only Memphis, which is expected to receive National Guard troops in the coming weeks after President Donald Trump signed an order directing the move Monday.

Asked about troops potentially coming to Detroit, a spokesman for Mayor Mike Duggan noted the city has seen significant declines in violent crimes in recent years, including to the lowest number of homicides in nearly 60 years.

In 2024, Detroit’s law enforcement strategy produced record declines and resulted in the fewest homicides, shootings, and carjackings since 1965, Duggan spokesman John Roach said Wednesday. So far this year, the city is experiencing a further 15% drop in homicides, 25% decline in shootings, and 30% plunge in carjackings, all record lows, he said.

"The current partnership between federal, state, county, and private violence prevention groups is achieving record reductions, and it would be a serious mistake to abandon this successful strategy," Roach said.

Whitmer's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Vance's remarks.

The National Guard offer came almost two weeks after Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Mike Rogers of White Lake called on Detroit's mayor to ask President Donald Trump for federal help to "Make Detroit Safe Again."

"It's about time that they acknowledge that Detroit needs them, too," said Michelle Davis, a Hatch worker who lives in Owosso, about the National Guard. She said she last visited Detroit in April to see an AC/DC rock concert and was concerned about the number of homeless people living there.

Shortly after Vance completed his remarks in Michigan, all 13 Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee, including Michigan U.S. Sens. Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin, released a letter to the GOP chairman asking him to convene a hearing with Pentagon leadership to examine Trump’s military deployments in U.S. cities, raising concerns about the military being exploited for political purposes.

On Monday, Duggan addressed the issue of Trump potentially deploying the National Guard in Detroit at an unrelated press conference. The three-term mayor said “you have never seen” Trump or anybody from the White House or Justice Department suggest that National Guard troops “would be needed in the city of Detroit.”

Duggan noted that there were zero homicides in the city last weekend. September is normally a “very violent month,” usually with 25 to 30 homicides, but there had been three as of Monday, Duggan said.

That decline, the mayor said, came after Detroit saw a spike in teen violence and gang shootings earlier in the summer. He and Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison announced a "Five-Step Plan" in July that included stepping up enforcement of the city's curfew ordinance and extending the hours of the Detroit Police unit charged with breaking up large illegal gatherings, including block parties and drag races.

Duggan also said that Jerome Gorgon, who was appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as interim U.S. Attorney in Detroit, has “dramatically ramped up federal support for gun violence.”

“I said this a month ago in a CNN interview that the president deserves credit for what the Justice Department is doing here, and I got all kinds of attacks, and Democrats went crazy: 'Why are you giving Donald Trump credit?'” said Duggan, a former Democrat who is running for governor in 2026 as an independent.

'Rebuild the American dream'

The vice president's comments came before a crowd of hundreds at a metal stamping plant in Livingston County, which was closed for the day for Vance's visit, about a week after the assassination of conservative activist and Trump administration ally Charlie Kirk.

Vance credited Kirk with creating a "movement" that led to both Vance and Trump's election. "An assassin gunned him down for daring to say things that the assassin thought were wrong or shouldn't be said," Vance said of Kirk.

The vice president was a close friend of 31-year-old Kirk, the founder of the conservative political organization Turning Point USA. On Monday, the vice president hosted Kirk’s radio show in a sign of support, and last week he transported Kirk’s body home from Utah to Arizona aboard Air Force Two.

In addition to memorializing Kirk, Vance used the trip to Michigan to promote the sweeping domestic policy and tax cut package passed by Republicans and signed by President Donald Trump earlier this year. The vice president's remarks followed a tour of a Hatch Stamping Co. plant.

"We have got to rebuild the American dream, especially for our young people, which is why the Big Beautiful Bill does so much to bring manufacturing back to America," Vance said. He repeatedly touted the sweeping tax legislation for ending taxes on tips and overtime.

Roughly 200 people gathered to hear Vance speak in the cavernous factory floor, squeezed together next to robots, forklifts and other machinery.

Michigan U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer joined Vance on the tour and gave remarks introducing the vice president before his speech.

Barrett, asked if the Vance visit would help his 2026 reelection chances in mid-Michigan's competitive 7th District, said it "absolutely" would.

"It shows the commitment that this administration has to the men and women in Michigan, specifically in my district, but across the state and across the country," he told reporters. "Michigan is really representative of the types of folks that we're trying to really help with the working families tax cut."

Republicans on Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, have tried since returning from a summer recess to rebrand their legislative package. Though it is officially called the One Big Beautiful Act, some GOP members have begun referring to it as the "Working Families Tax Cut Act."

Speakers reflect on Kirk's death, aftermath

Other Republicans took the stage before Vance and acknowledged Kirk's death. They included Michigan state Rep. Jason Woolford, R-Howell; Rogers; and Alex Bitzan, president of Michigan State University's chapter of Turning Point.

"Our culture is being pushed aside," Woolford told the crowd. "We are in a fight — not for power, not for titles, but for principles."

Rogers said "America woke up" and "something important happened" in the past week. "There was no burning, there's no looting. Thousands and thousands of people came to vigils all across the state, all across this country, to reflect, to pray, to pray for his family, to pray for the future of our country," he said.

The former six-term congressman added: "They inspired a new generation of people who said, 'We will activate and get to the ballot box coming next year.'"

Bitzan highlighted less sympathetic reactions to the killing of Kirk at a Utah Valley University event: "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, everyone, but hatred and evil is closer to home than we think. Since Charlie's assassination, I've watched as countless people have justified, minimized and even celebrated his death."

Bitzan continued: "It's become clear that a significant portion of our country doesn't just hate Charlie. They hate the good, the true and the beautiful. They hate you for simply daring to disagree with them."

"Responsibility for the collapse of our social fabric falls on those who've spent years calling everyone they disagree with racist, Nazi, bigot, Hitler and fascist. They got us here, and they must get us out."

Howell, where the Wednesday rally took place, has a notable history of racial strife. In Michigan, the city is often associated with Robert Miles, a former Michigan Ku Klux Klan grand dragon who lived on a farm near the city for decades until his death in 1992, according to the Livingston Daily.

White supremacists demonstrated in the city last summer, chanting “We love Hitler. We love Trump,” the newspaper reported. Howell, earlier that year, had announced plans to hire a public relations team to combat the city’s racist reputation, per a CBS Detroit report.

Democrats react to Vance visit

The Democrats' national U.S. House campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, denounced Vance's visit to Michigan in a statement.

“JD Vance is parachuting in to lie to Michiganders about Tom Barrett’s toxic agenda, because Barrett can’t defend giving tax breaks to billionaires and backing reckless tariffs at Michigan families’ expense," DCCC spokesperson Katie Smith said.

"Thanks to Barrett and Vance, Michiganders are losing their health care, facing layoffs at their manufacturing jobs, and paying higher prices everywhere from the grocery store to their electricity bills," Smith said, adding that voters would reject Barrett in 2026.

Michigan Democratic Party Chairperson Curtis Hertel also decried the visit.

"Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are devastating Michigan’s economy with their chaotic tariffs and disastrous health care cuts – all to line billionaires’ pockets at the cost of working families," he said in a statement. "Let’s be clear, this visit was just the latest lie in a long history of deception and broken promises from this administration and the politicians like Mike Rogers and Tom Barrett who back their harmful agenda."

Views from the crowd

The manufacturing plant visit came at a fraught moment for U.S. manufacturing. Trump has used emergency powers to slap legally dubious tariffs on products from a wide-ranging group of countries, from allies such as Canada and Mexico to adversaries such as China.

The country's total number of manufacturing jobs has decreased slightly since Trump took office, and the potential for higher tariffs to cause higher prices on products consumers buy has worried businesses and some residents.

Brad Rhodes, a 32-year-old Hatch manufacturing technician who services robots, said he has mixed feelings about tariffs: “I’m on the fence,” he said.

Higher tariffs on Canadian goods sometimes mean delays in getting needed parts for the stamping plant, Rhodes said. But if the government raises enough money from tariffs to scrap income taxes, it would be worth it, he said.

At the site of Vance's Howell rally, Darlene Rosati, a 59-year-old interior designer from Pinckney, Michigan, said Kirk’s death motivated her to attend.

Rosati read Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” and, as a survivor of a fentanyl addiction, connected with him. She had not heard of Kirk until his assassination, but said as a Christian, his death affected her deeply.

Rosati said she hopes Vance will give a message “that we can’t give up” during his Wednesday speech. She said violence is not acceptable and that adults must provide an example to children by not speaking badly about each other.

“If stuff like that happens, we’re basically silencing both sides,” Rhodes said of political violence, adding that he wants Americans with different political views to disagree peacefully.

“We should be able to talk,” he said.

“I don’t think anybody should be killed for speaking their opinion,” added Maya Wilson, a 21-year-old manufacturing associate at Hatch.

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(Detroit News staff writers Melissa Burke and Anne Snabes contributed to this story.)

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