Trump repeats false claim that he won nonexistent Michigan ‘Man of the Year’ award

Donald Trump descended on Michigan to once again boast of an award that no news organisation has been able to confirm actually exists.

The one-term president told the crowd at Michigan Stars Sports Center in Washington Township that he had won a ‘Man of the Year’ award in the state two years ago.

“They named me the Man of the Year in Michigan,” Mr Trump said.

“I got up and I said, ‘They’re stealing your car business,’” the president told the rally on Saturday. “And, I was really rebuked. That said that wasn’t a very nice thing to say. But, it’s the truth that I was right. That was a long time ago, Man of the Year in Michigan. We’ve been doing this stuff a long time actually.”

Though, as Insider reports, no such award seems to exist. A Detroit News list of “Michiganians of the Year” makes no mention of Mr Trump. The newspaper looked into the matter in 2019, reporting that Mr Trump had made the false claim at least six times since 2016. “No one in Michigan seems to know what he is talking about,” the Detroit News reported.

During the rally on Saturday, Mr Trump also claimed Vladimir Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if he was still in the White House.

Mr Trump he was surprised at the Kremlin’s assault on Ukraine, and admitted that he thought Mr Putin was just negotiating a “great deal”.

“I thought he was negotiating. He had 150,000 soldiers on the border, I thought he was going to make a great deal,” Mr Trump told the rally.

And Mr Trump insisted that Moscow pushed forward with its unprovoked invasion of its neighbour because of the way that US troops left Afghanistan last August.

“I think that when he (Putin) saw what happened in Afghanistan, the way we ran, we didn’t to have one soldier killed there in 18 months, I said Abdul there are going to be no more of our soldiers killed. Not one person was killed for 18 months and Biden even said that,” he said.

“Then we lost 13, but they don’t talk about how horribly so many of them were wounded. This invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if I was in the White House, would never have happened, not ever.

“I knew Putin very well, and you know they say ‘Oh well he knows Putin’, that is a good thing, good thing, not a bad thing. I know Kim Jong-un, I know President Xi of China and you know what we had no conflict, remember?”

Mr Trump then added that the Taliban now had $85bn worth of US military equipment left behind in the rapid departure from the country, and suggested that America should “maybe go in and take it back.”

He then mocked Joe Biden for his “mental and physical decline” to roars of approval from his supporters.

“I don’t think we have ever had a time in our country where we feel so low and so dejected. We are living through the most dangerous period of our lifetime and we have a president who has no idea what’s going on, what he’s doing, what he’s saying or where he is. other than that he is doing an excellent job,” he said.

“There is maybe nothing we can do to prevent Joe Biden’s mental and physical decline, but with your vote this November we can stop our country’s decline and Make America Great Again.”

Mr Trump also turned his attention to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who it has been reported is leaving the Biden administration to join MSNBC.

He described Ms Psaki as “the woman with the really beautiful red hair” and claimed the news network is trying to hire her because they need a red head in their line-up.