STURTEVANT, Wisc. — President Joe Biden on Wednesday attacked Donald Trump over a failed project by the previous administration that was imagined to bring hundreds of latest jobs to southeastern Wisconsin, and he announced that latest economic investments could be made in the identical place under his watch.
A brand new Microsoft data center will now be built at this location within the embattled state, whose president praised the Biden administration's economic policy as a pioneer for brand spanking new investments. For Biden, it represented one other point of contrast between him and Trump, who had promised a $10 billion investment from Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn that never materialized.
“In fact, he came here with your Senator Ron Johnson, who was literally holding a golden shovel and promising to build the eighth wonder of the world. Are you kidding me?” Biden told the crowd of about 300, who clapped and cheered loudly as he spoke. “They dug a hole with these golden shovels and then they fell in.”
Noting that 100 homes were destroyed to make way for the project that wasted hundreds of millions of dollars, Biden added a dig: “Foxconn turned out to be just that – a fraud. Imagine that.”
Biden was in Sturtevant in Racine County to promote the $3.3 billion Microsoft data center, which the Democratic president said will employ about 2,300 union construction workers and then 2,000 permanent employees to build.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press that Microsoft has an “unwavering commitment to under-promising and over-delivering” and praised the Biden administration and the state's Democratic Gov. Tony Evers for their economic policies, which paved the way. The developments were announced on Wednesday.
But Biden was eager to take the honor and seize the opportunity to repeatedly push back against Trump, arguing that his presumptive Republican challenger represented the same kind of “trickle-down economics” that Biden loathes, and it He failed to revive domestic production during his four years in office in the White House.
“Folks, during the previous administration, my predecessor made promises that he broke more than he kept, leaving many people in communities like Racine behind,” Biden said. “On my watch we make promises and we keep promises.”
Trump's campaign didn’t address Foxconn, but the previous Republican president often says that the economy was in a a lot better place when he was in office and that it’ll be the case again if he wins in 2024. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said Biden's trip was an try to “save face in Racine County as Wisconsinites feel the pain of Bidenomics.”
“Production has stalled, family farms are closing and the cost of everything from electricity and gas to food and housing is rising,” Whatley said. “It’s no wonder why Biden is losing in Wisconsin and battleground states across the country: His policies have failed and people want President Trump back in office.”
Foxconn, meanwhile, said its current operations in Wisconsin make a “huge contribution” to the company, which has invested about $1 billion in the state and now employs more than 1,000 people at Foxconn Wisconsin.
Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, who represents the district Biden visited on Wednesday, said the Microsoft announcement was good for workers. But Steil said Biden was using it to cover up his record for failing to control rising inflation and said Biden was taking much of the credit for the private sector's work in the region that began a decade ago of which for the Foxconn project.
As for Trump, he was back in Florida on Wednesday on his day off from his New York hush money trial, meeting at his Mar-a-Lago club with people who may or may not have purchased digital trading card NFTs as part of a promotion -fungible tokens, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The “MugShot Edition” NFTs featured images of Trump as a cowboy, with lightning bolts from his hands, walking past the U.S. Capitol and taking Lincoln’s place at the Lincoln Memorial.
Biden took a break from campaigning after his speech in Sturtevant to speak to Black voters about the risks of the November election.
Racine County is a critical location. All but five of the last 33 winning presidential candidates wore it. Trump is one of the five. He won Racine County but lost the election. Biden became the first Democrat since 1976 to win Wisconsin without winning Racine County.
The race is expected to be close in Wisconsin, where four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by less than one percentage point. Biden won in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. A recent Marquette University poll found that Republican voters in Wisconsin are slightly more enthusiastic about the election than Democrats.
Biden's trip to Wisconsin, his fourth this year and 11th as president, came at a time when his reelection also increased his reach over the airwaves to minority voters. It announced the launch of a new $14 million digital and television push, following the $30 million effort that began after his State of the Union address in early March.
By the end of May, Biden's reelection effort will include more than 200 offices and about 500 staffers, according to Dan Kanninen, the campaign's campaign manager. Those numbers include offices in areas where Democrats have traditionally not invested, such as Michigan, Arizona and North Carolina.
While Microsoft has pushed the construction of artificial intelligence data centers around the world, “this one is more necessary than many others due to the supply of more land and ultimately access to electricity,” said Smith, who lived in the world where he lived as a baby Center is being built.
However, once operational, even probably the most powerful data centers typically employ a comparatively small group of full-time employees to oversee them. Microsoft will employ about 500 people made up of highly expert staff within the Milwaukee-Chicago corridor, Smith said.
But he argued that the larger impact for the region would lie within the technology itself and broader investments to arrange the Upper Midwest for its impact.
“This is about the competitiveness of manufacturing in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio,” Smith said.
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