{"id":20039,"date":"2026-07-28T17:09:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T12:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20039"},"modified":"2026-07-28T17:09:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T12:09:22","slug":"michigan-gov-candidate-parrots-trumps-false-election-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20039","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Gov Candidate Parrots Trump&#8217;s False Election Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<p>Rep. <strong>John James <\/strong>(R-MI), who\u2019s currently running for governor of Michigan, parroted President <strong>Donald Trump\u2019s<\/strong> false 2020 election claim during a rally at a General Motors plant on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Trump introduced several politicians to come to the podium during the rally, including Rep. <strong>Lisa McClain<\/strong> (R-MI), Rep. <strong>Tom Barrett<\/strong> (R-MI), and James.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJohn James, come up!\u201d Trump bellowed. \u201cYou have to win, John James!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you, Mr. President, for coming back to Michigan, where you won three times,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n<p>However, the flattery may have gone unnoticed by Trump, who remained stone-faced behind the gubernatorial candidate.<\/p>\n<p>James continued:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We very much appreciate your leadership. And as governor of the state of Michigan, we\u2019re going to be matching those Trump accounts. We\u2019re going to be taking care of our children. We\u2019re going to be matching those. You know, we have a president who keeps his promises. We have a president who looked at a situation and he said \u2018You\u2019re going to have very fast planes in Macomb County. You know what he did? In the very first 100 days the president of United States, President Donald J. Trump delivered F-15 EX to Selfridge National Guard Base.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>As the audience applauded, Trump smiled and appeared to mouth, \u201ctrue, true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Once Trump backed James last month, two of his opponents \u2014 former Michigan Attorney General <strong>Mike Cox<\/strong> and State Senator <strong>Aric Nesbitt<\/strong> \u2014 suspended their campaigns and also backed James.<\/p>\n<p>James now faces businessman <strong>Perry Johnson<\/strong> (R) in the August 4 primary. Johnson put <a href=\"https:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2026\/07\/24\/perry-johnson-gave-30-million-to-his-campaign-for-governor\/91043311007\/?gnt-cfr=1&amp;gca-cat=p&amp;gca-uir=true&amp;gca-epti=z116545p119850l004050c119850e1175xxv116545d--44--b--44--&amp;gca-ft=199&amp;gca-ds=sophi\">$30.8 million<\/a> of his own money toward his campaign, according to a recent disclosure.<\/p>\n<p>The winner will face either current Michigan Secretary of State <strong>Jocelyn Benson<\/strong> (D) or Genesee Co. Sheriff <strong>Chris Swanson<\/strong> (D).<\/p>\n<p>Incumbent Democratic Gov. <strong>Gretchen Whitmer\u2019s<\/strong> (D) term ends Jan. 1, 2027. Whitmer, who took a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/29\/us\/gretchen-whitmer-donald-trump-2028.html\">conciliatory\u201d approach<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/tv\/gretchen-whitmer-addresses-viral-photo-of-her-trying-to-hide-trump-oval-office-meeting-thats-all-it-was\/\">working with Trump<\/a>, has given mixed signals on whether she\u2019ll run for president in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the clip above via NewsNation.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. John James (R-MI), who\u2019s currently running for governor of Michigan, parroted President Donald Trump\u2019s false 2020 election claim during a rally at a General Motors plant on Monday. Trump introduced several politicians to come to the podium during the rally, including Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI), and James. \u201cJohn James, come&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/trump-8-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}