What a difference a Trump -- and a day -- can make for Ford

Score another one for Donald Trump. Just one day after the real estate mogul and GOP presidential front-runner took the stump in Michigan last week and excoriated Ford Motor Co. for "building a $2.5 billion plant in Mexico" instead of the U.S., Ford fired up its Avon Lake, Ohio, plant to start producing medium-duty commercial trucks that had been built in Mexico.

Now how many of those pathetic professional politicians in Washington can claim results like that?

OK, so that's not exactly how it went down. But if you believe the reality-TV star, that's how it would work under a Trump administration. It would be as if the federal government owned a controlling stake in the automaker.

"President Trump," he told the crowd, wouldn't let Ford move jobs to Mexico and would persuade CEO Mark Fields to bring jobs back to the U.S. (Trump later said he was unmoved by a "very, very nice letter" from Fields explaining Ford's $6.2 billion in U.S. investments.)

"I would say, 'The deal is not going to be approved,'" Trump roared at a rally in Birch Run, about 90 miles north of Detroit. "I won't allow it. I want that plant in the United States, preferably here. So then I only have one question: Do they move the plant to the United States the same day or a day later?"