President Donald Trump says Governor Scott Walker took the Foxconn ball and ran with it. At Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony for the Foxconn campus in Racine County, Trump said he handed off the deal to Walker.
“I gave it to Scott Walker. He literally didn’t have to make a phone call to me, for the last year and-a-half. He is an unbeliaavely talanted guy,” Trump said. He called Walker up on stage, where the Republican governor thanked the presdent for bringing the massive project to Wisconsin.
“You got the ball rolling. Foxconn would not be in America if not for you,” Walker told Trump. The groundbreaking included the president turning shovels of dirt with Walker, Foxconn chair Terry Gou, and House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Trump took credit for the deal that has Foxconn building the $10 billion campus, and promising up to 13,000 jobs. “I will tell you they wouldn’t have done it here except I became president, so that’s good,” he said. “This is one of the greatest deals ever. What this is going to do, and I don’t even know that anyone’s critical of it. I can’t imagine they could be.”
Today, we broke ground on a plant that will provide jobs for up to 15,000 Wisconsin Workers! As Foxconn has discovered, there is no better place to build, hire and grow than right here in the United States! pic.twitter.com/tOFFodZYvK
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2018
In fact, Wisconsin Democrats have been highly critical of the deal the state struck with Foxconn in order to leverage the project.
Trump also used his remarks to call out Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson. “Please build those beautiful motorcycles in the USA,” Trump said. “Don’t get cute with us. Don’t get cute.” Harley announced that week it would shift some production overseas in response to European Union tariffs, triggering a Trump Twitter tirade.
