While his GOP competitors were holding a debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, former President Donald Trump was addressing a crowd at a rally in the Detroit suburbs. Unlike his prior (and potential future) presidential opponent, Joe Biden, Trump addressed the crowd for a little over an hour. 

Covering a range of topics, Trump praised auto workers but pulled no punches when it came to the automakers.  

The president spoke at auto parts manufacturer and supplier Drake Enterprises, a non-union plant in Clinton Charter Township, Michigan, but spent a significant amount of time addressing an audience not in the room, the United Auto Workers union members striking in 20 states. 

The former president praised the work of auto workers, saying they don't get the credit they deserve, as some audience members waved "Unions for Trump" signs.

"You built this country," Trump told his audience, to cheers. He said he sided with the auto workers of America who want to make America great again, and who make cars "that are going to go far."

And he also complained that automakers were either "stupid or gutless" for investing in developing electric cars, of which he said, "The damn things don't go far enough, and they're too expensive."

Trump also took the opportunity to criticize President Biden: 

"Biden's mandate isn't a government regulation, it's a government assassination of your jobs and your industry," Trump said. "The auto industry is being assassinated. And it makes no difference what you get, I don't care what you get in the next two weeks or three weeks or five weeks. They're going to be closing up and they're going to be building those cars in China and other places. It's a hit job on Michigan and on Detroit, and that's not sustainable."

Trump announced his visit to the Detroit area before Mr. Biden did. 

"He only came after I announced that I would be here," Trump said Wednesday night, adding that Mr. Biden only spoke for a "few seconds." 

He told the crowd they were being sold out by the Biden administration. 

He insisted Biden’s embrace of electric vehicles — a key component of his clean-energy agenda — will ultimately lead to lost jobs, amplifying the concerns of some autoworkers who worry that electric cars require fewer people to manufacture and that there is no guarantee factories that produce them will be unionized.

“He’s selling you out to China, he’s selling you out to the environmental extremists and the radical left, people who have no idea how bad this is going to be for the environment,” Trump told his crowd, flanked by American flags and pallets of auto parts.

Unsurprisingly, the crowd sang Trump's praises, as well. 

Tony Duronio, 64, a longtime Trump supporter and real estate broker who lives in Clinton Township, said he received an invitation from a group called Autoworkers for Trump. Duronio praised the economy during Trump’s time in office and echoed the former president’s criticism of electric vehicles: “Nobody wants ‘em,” he said — and applauded Trump’s decision to skip the debate.

“He’s the frontrunner. He doesn’t have any competition,” he said. “Look, if it ain’t him, I may stay home ’cause the rest are no different than Biden.”