Former President Donald Trump said he would not pay the company that rented him campaign equipment after his microphone went silent for about 20 minutes at a rally in Detroit.
President Trump was speaking about his tariff policy at an event on Friday and was about to call it “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” when his microphone cut out. Someone tried giving the former president a different microphone, but that didn't work either.
The audience remained upbeat during intermission as Mr. Trump paced the stage, occasionally raising his voice as he waited for the rally to resume.
After his microphone started working again, Trump spoke up. “Well, what's going to happen is, I'm not going to pay the bill to this stupid company that lent us this crap.”
“I don't pay the bills. Then the story will be that President Trump didn't pay the bills to the contractors. No, I don't pay the bills when they do work like that. Please,” he said. “That's terrible.”
“If it comes out again, I'm going to sue the company,” he later added. “We're going to sue them.”
Mr. Trump has previously vowed not to pay companies for technology-related problems at his rallies, such as when a teleprompter went wrong in Las Vegas in June.
Hundreds of contractors who previously worked for Mr. Trump said in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election that Mr. Trump had not paid them for years.
President Trump continued his speech by laying out his economic policy, saying his administration would reduce corporate taxes, energy costs and regulations by manufacturing products in the United States and hiring American workers. He said companies would have to pay “stiff” tariffs if they did not manufacture products here.
Mr. Trump insisted he was not a “protectionist” as some have said, but simply “pro-worker.”
He has called for widespread tariffs on many products, saying if elected, he would create a “manufacturing boom” despite criticism that they would pass costs on to consumers and worsen inflation. There is.
