Trump Aims at Ford Motor, Takes Vulgar Pokes at Clinton

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WALKER, MI – Donald Trump said he would ramp up pressure against Dearborn-based Ford Motor Co., which is planning to expand a manufacturing plant in Mexico, and attacked Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton with vulgarity at a campaign appearance in Michigan Monday, his second in the state this year.

Before a raucous crowd of 8,100 in the Grand Rapids suburb of Walker, the flamboyant GOP front-runner said he would punish Ford with a 35 percent tax for “every car, bumper and part” produced at the automaker’s expanded plant in Mexico.

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If Ford CEO Mark Fields doesn’t acquiesce to his demand that he bring production back to the United States, the tariff would increase to 40 percent, Trump vowed.

“Mexico is going to become the car capital of the world, just you watch,” he said. “And if you wait another day, it’s going to be 40 percent.”

Ford plans to invest $2.5 billion in Mexico and add 3,800 production jobs at a plant that already employs 11,300. Ford has had operations there for 90 years. Fields maintains that Trump has misstated the facts about the automaker’s production in Mexico.

On Clinton, he used a vulgar Yiddish term to describe her loss to President Obama in the 2008 presidential race.

“... She was going to beat — she was favored to win —and she got schlonged, she lost, I mean she lost,” Trump said.

“I know where she went, it’s disgusting, I don’t want to talk about it,” Trump said. “No, it’s too disgusting. Don’t say it, it’s disgusting, let’s not talk, we want to be very, very straight up.”

The attack on Clinton, particularly the use of the Yiddish word to describe male genitalia, drew a sharp response from the left-leaning ThinkProgress, which called his attack “astonishingly sexist.”

“… ‘Schlong’ is a well-known reference to a man’s genitals. There are no alternative definitions for the word, according to Merriam-Webster,” ThinkProgress wrote.

It isn’t the first time the billionaire real estate tycoon has been accused of sexist behavior. During a GOP debate last August, Trump said Fox News host Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever” after she questioned him about misogynistic, sexist comments.

Trump is leading in polls in early-voting states. A new FOX News poll showed he jumped to 39 percent among Republicans in early voting states — an 11 percent jump — after he made comments about stopping non-U.S. Muslims from entering the country. The poll showed seven in 10 GOP voters favor a temporary ban.

The latest poll averages from RealClearPolitics.com show Trump polling at 34 percent among likely Republican voters. The next closest contender is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, with 17 percent.

» Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr