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DETROIT — The voice of ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick now fills Michigan’s airwaves, praising the man who freed him from prison: former President Donald Trump.
The one-minute spot, paid for by the Michigan GOP, draws from Kilpatrick’s August speech to the Oakland County Republican Party. At its Lincoln Day Dinner, the same week as the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Kilpatrick forsook the party that made him a political rising star — until he resigned in 2008 under a cloud of corruption charges — and praised the Republican nominee.
“I had to challenge everything that I used to expound,” Kilpatrick says in the ad. “I had to challenge my stance on abortion. I had to challenge my stance on all the different morality issues that are in the world today. I had to challenge my stance on identity politics.”
But Mario Morrow, a Detroit-based political consultant, doesn’t see a changed man. He sees a man in a changed circumstance.
“He is doing everything in his power to get in good with Donald Trump and banking on the fact that Trump will become victorious in November and give him a redemption job,” Morrow told The Post.
“And if Donald Trump loses, he’s still going to be looking for the GOP, MAGA loyalists to bail him out and reward him financially with a job or speaking engagements,” Morrow added. “He’s doing whatever he can do to secure his future with those people who he thinks can do it for him. And this has nothing to do with God.”
Morrow is referring to Kilpatrick’s mentions of the divine in the new ad: “I stopped thinking about people in terms of what party they’re in or what city they’re from or what race they are, and I started to understand that God wants me to do in the government what He desires for us.”
The ex-mayor goes on to raise the stakes, arguing Trump can be a safeguard against devastation and ruin.
“This election is about the survival of our nation. It’s about the survival of our children. It’s about the survival of our economy. And when people are set against us in war, it matters that you send the firefighter into the room. I want Trump in the room.”
The “God” line raised eyebrows in Detroit, where people are wary of a Kilpatrick comeback.
“Kwame Kilpatrick is not a role model, or someone that people look up to,” Morrow said.
Morrow believes Republicans are using Kilpatrick to signal to black men it’s OK to vote for Trump. But he says, “They picked the wrong black guy for that.”
Kilpatrick has been convicted in state and federal court and forced to surrender his law license. A civil lawsuit owing to the improper firing of two Detroit police officials cost city taxpayers $8.5 million.
Kilpatrick resigned from the mayor’s office in Sept. 2008 after pleading guilty to felonies in a state case.
The Michigan Legislature soon passed what is essentially known as the Kwame Kilpatrick Law, which bars people convicted of felonies related to their public service from running for state or local office for 20 years.
Because Kilpatrick’s federal conviction took place in 2013, that ban goes to 2033. It does not extend to federal offices, such as Congress and the presidency.
Trump commuted Kilpatrick’s 28-year sentence after about seven years of time served, in one of the former president’s final acts in office.
Michigan is a crucial swing state for Trump. Numbers expert Nate Silver recently declared that if Trump wins Michigan, he has a 95% chance of winning the entire election.
Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, both campaigned in Michigan Tuesday — Vance visited Sparta for a rally while Trump hosted a town hall in Flint.