Northeast Ohio Politician Urges Trump Action Before Toledo Rally

TOLEDO, OH — President Donald Trump will make the first of many visits in 2020 to the Buckeye State on Thursday evening. He will speak at the Huntington Center in Toledo, where he will be joined by Vice President Mike Pence.

Prior the president's rally, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, whose district stretches across five Northeast Ohio counties and includes Toledo, urged the president to consider the struggles of everyday Americans.

"As America falls deeper into financial debt and our budget and trade deficits soar at your hand, communities like Toledo are forced to sacrifice the most. With our labor and tax dollars, we pay the greater interest payments to foreign lenders who keep our nation financially afloat, even while our bedrock manufacturing jobs are pulled out from under us and sent to penny wage countries," Kaptur wrote in a letter to the president.

Kaptur went on to criticize the president's handling of affordable health care, his elimination of federal community and economic development funds and his proposed wholesale elimination of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (which was rejected by Congress).

"You have not aided Toledo with emergency federal funds to address the fragile condition of Lake Erie in the wake of its clean water crisis, similar to your behavior toward Flint, Michigan. And, your Department of Energy chose to ignore the nuclear power plant financing crisis at commercial firms across our nation, like Davis-Besse here, while devolving the significant financing burden on States like Ohio that then imposed those heavy costs on local ratepayers," Kaptur wrote.

She also urged the president to find a solution to the job loss suffered in Ohio at the hands of NAFTA. She said his trade war and tariffs have failed to produce significant job creation in the Buckeye State.

She concluded by wishing Trump would tour her district with her.

"I wish you could tour our community with me. I could show you the struggle we face each day. It is struggle that cannot be understood from behind a podium in an arena, nor a tower in Manhattan, nor a golf course in West Palm Beach," Kaptur said.