Trump tells Virginia town it’s failing, cites completely wrong information
Donald Trump told Loudoun County how poorly they were doing. However, whoever prepped Trump gave him information about other locations and his references made no sense.
Loudoun is the richest county in America. That’s due in part to the enormous amount of money the federal government spent on the War on Terror in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The place is replete with defense contractors, engineers, and rocket scientists. And it’s recession-proof; while the rest of the country struggled through the Great Recession, Loudoun kept sprouting up neighborhoods of McMansions, seemingly with a swimming pool in every backyard.
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But Trump seems to think it’s part of the Rust Belt. Toward the end of his speech—to an atypically preppy, professional, clean-cut audience—the candidate bashed the county economy.
“You’re doing lousy over here, by the way, I hate to tell you,” he said.
That is empirically false.
He then listed a number of factory closures, including Ball Corp., which was five hours away in Bristol, as far from Loudoun as you can get without leaving the state. And he mentioned the closure of a Smithfield Foods Inc.
“Anybody used to work for Smithfield?” he asked the crowd.
It’s almost certain none of them did. The Smithfield plant that closed was in Hampton Roads, Virginia—three hours from Ashburn, in the southeast corner of the state.
Then he went back to naming factories.
“Stanley Furniture closed its plant,” he continued.
Stanley Furniture did indeed recently close a plant, in 2014. That plant was in North Carolina.
He also mentioned the closure of a plant owned by Invista, a Koch Industries company that produces fabric and carpeting. That plant was two hours from Ashburn, and it closed eight years ago.
Then Trump discussed job losses in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
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