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Trump Rally in Ohio Amid Layoffs at Truck Factory
Confirmed
In Short: Nearly 1,400 workers were laid off from a truck factory just days before President Trump's rally in Dayton.
Nearly 1,400 workers were laid off from the Navistar truck factory in southwestern Ohio just days before President Donald Trump's rally in the nearby Dayton area.
The layoffs, which occurred on Wednesday, have erased an entire year of job growth in the greater Dayton area, according to reports.
Marianne Donnelly, a forklift driver at the factory, said, “We weren’t getting a lot of overtime because of the economy.”
Laid-off workers like Donnelly expect to be rehired in six to 12 months by Roshel, a Canadian manufacturer of armored vehicles, which is buying the plant.
The layoffs have become a flashpoint in the state's political debate ahead of November's midterm elections.
The Dayton area has shed about half of its 90,000 factory jobs since 1990, according to federal data, after the North American Free Trade Agreement shifted many jobs to Mexico where auto parts could be made more cheaply.
Bos, a member of the United Auto Workers who identifies as a centrist, said, “Something has to change politically in this country.”
Bos, who voted for Trump three times, added, “It feels like a bribe, a slap in the face, and, like, that we’re all ignorant.”
The White House spokeswoman, Taylor Rogers, told Newsweek that “as a result of the President’s pro-growth economic agenda, billions of dollars in new private investment are flooding into the state of Ohio, creating jobs and boosting local communities.”
Roshel said in a statement that it’s “working with everyone involved not only to protect the current workforce, but to more than double it over the coming years through a phased process.”
Background
Nearly 1,400 workers were laid off from a truck factory just days before Trump's rally in Dayton.
Jim Copenhaver, a 74-year-old man who was wounded in a failed assassination attempt on President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024, died on Wednesday, two years after the shooting.
What's confirmed
- Asked how many times he voted for Trump, Bos held up three tattooed fingers.
- And on Wednesday, Bos and nearly 1,400 other people were laid off from their jobs at what had been the Navistar truck factory in southwestern Ohio.
- The layoffs — occurring just three days before Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday at a nearby high school — were large enough to basically erase an entire year of job growth in the greater Dayton, Ohio area.
- But a few days ago, 1,400 workers were laid off from a truck factory there.
- The Dayton area has shed about half of its 90,000 factory jobs since 1990, according to federal data, after the North American Free Trade Agreement shifted many jobs to Mexico where auto parts could be made more cheaply.
- "Seems like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse."
- President Donald Trump is trying to rally voters in the Dayton, Ohio, area.
- “The fake news media, they refuse to talk about our record-setting numbers. So tonight, if you don’t mind, I’m going to do it myself,” he told the rally.
- “Something has to change politically in this country,” said Bos, a member of the United Auto Workers who identifies as a centrist.
- “All over the country, they’re building factories, plants, manufacturing’s coming back,” Trump said on Thursday.
- “It feels like a bribe, a slap in the face, and, like, that we’re all ignorant,” Bos said.
- “My jail was 40 percent drug addicts, 50 percent mental health patients, 10 percent criminals,” said Plummer, the Montgomery County GOP chairman who has been a Republican state representative since 2019.
What's still developing
- Days after his son resigned as defensive coordinator amid another scandal involving the football program, Bill Belichick found himself in position for his first monumental win as the North Carolina Tar Heels head coach.
- More than 1,300 employees were expected to lose their jobs as part of International Motors' agreement to sell the Springfield Assembly Plant and Truck Specialty Center to Canadian vehicle manufacturer Roshel, per a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filed with Ohio authorities.