Watch Live Stream: Donald Trump in Novi, Michigan [Updated]

Updated. NOVI, MI — Speaking in Novi Friday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said an announcement earlier in the day that his microphone at Monday’s debate at Hofstra University had some issues vindicated him.

“It was just as I was saying,” Trump declared before tens of thousands of people at Novi’s Suburban Collection Showplace. “Working that mic was a hell of a lot more difficult than working crooked Hillary Clinton. I wonder why it was band. I wonder why it was bad.”

The Commission on Debates acknowledged the problem in a one-sentence statement that read: :Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump's audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall.”

The statement didn’t say if the problem affected the audio heard by about 90 million television viewers. Speaking to reporters earlier, Clinton said that “anybody who complains about the microphone is not having a good night,” Clinton told reporters earlier.

During Trump’s rousing hour-long address, he was interrupted frequently by chants of “USA! USA! USA” when he hammered on familiar themes of protectionist trade policies to protect Michigan auto jobs and “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!” in a searing criticism of Clinton.

Watch the full speech below:

Our earlier story: Donald Trump is making his fifth visit to battleground state Michigan Friday since being crowned the Republican presidential nominee, and he will use the occasion to overcome a credibility gap that appears to be widening with the state’s voters since Monday’s nationally televised debate.

Sixteen electoral votes are at stake in Michigan, and both candidates covet them in what, despite an apparent post-debate bump for Hillary Clinton, is still expected to be a close race.

The 5 p.m. rally at the Suburban Collection Showplace comes after a spate of blistering editorials from some of the nation’s most conservative-leaning newspapers denouncing his candidacy and coming out in favor of the Democrat Clinton.

The Cincinnati Enquirer, which hasn’t endorsed a Democrat in more than a century, noted Trump and Clinton are the “most unpopular presidential candidates in American history” but said “our reservations about Clinton pale in comparison to our fears about Trump.”

Never until now has the 126-year-old Arizona Republic backed a Democrat, but it did so this year — and received death threats as a result.

The editorial board members of The Detroit News, which hasn’t endorsed anyone but a Republican candidate for president in its 143-year history, couldn’t bring themselves to endorse Clinton, but backed Libertarian Gary Johnson, denouncing Trump as “unprincipled, unstable and quite possibly dangerous.”

The editorial board of Gannett’s national newspaper, USA Today, reversed its long standing no-endorsement policy and was united in its consensus that the bombastic New York businessman is “unfit for the presidency” and “lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents.”

So far, Trump has failed to pick up a single endorsement from a major American newspaper.

Trump is sure to brush off the lack of support by the nation’s editors as more proof that the mainstream media is out to get him, David Yepsen, director of Southern Illinois University’s Paul Simon Public Policy and formerly a political columnist for Iowa’s Des Moines Register, told The Washington Times.

It may not be enough, and the candidate himself did little to bolster voters’ confidence in his leadership in the first of three presidential debates, viewed by about 90 million Americans.

A new poll released Thursday shows Trump losing ground in Michigan, after coming within the margin of error in an earlier poll released after Clinton had to leave a 9/11 commemoration ceremony after becoming ill.

The new poll, commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV/TV after the debate, gives Clinton a 7-percentage-point lead in both a head-to-head matchup with Trump and in a four-way race.

Nearly two-third of Michiganders — 62.5 percent — said Trump is unqualified to be president, compared to 57 percent who say years of public sector service have prepared former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state Clinton to lead the country.

Overall, about 52 percent of likely voters said Clinton won the 90-minute joust, compared to only 20 percent who thought Trump won. Among his supporters, 45 percent said he won; by comparison, 88 percent of Clinton supporters gave the victory to her.

“Even Trump voters had a hard time giving Trump the debate win,” pollster Richard Czuba, president of the Glengariff Group Inc., told The Detroit News.

“The problem for Trump is the debate was a prime opportunity to shift that perception that he wasn’t qualified,” Czuba said. “That should have been their No. 1 goal in the debate to come off as a qualified, calm leader.”

At the next debate, to be held Oct. 9 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, “he’s going to have to focus on this issue,” Czuba said.

Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons