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UAW Chief Slams 'Job-Killer-in-Chief' Trump Ahead of Michigan Visit
"Kamala Harris has stood with labor," said Shawn Fain. "She's walked the walk. Donald Trump serves himself. He's always served himself."
Oct 10, 2024
The head of the largest U.S. autoworkers union on Thursday highlighted the yawning chasm between former President Donald Trump's campaign promises to protect the country's auto industry and the 2024 Republican nominee's White House record—which includes hundreds of thousands of lost manufacturing jobs.
Speaking on a call hosted by the campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain argued that "there is a stark contrast between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris."
"Kamala Harris has stood with labor," Fain said of the UAW-endorsed candidate. "She's walked the walk. Donald Trump serves himself. He's always served himself."
Taking aim at Trump's claims that he's the best choice for U.S. autoworkers and that he's "always had their back," Fain said:
Look at the Lordstown, Ohio assembly plant. [Trump] told workers there, "Don't sell your houses." The plant closed. He came to Warren, Michigan, a week ago or two. Again, wants to talk about how he cares about autoworkers. But we had [General Motors'] powertrain plant in Warren closed under his watch. He did nothing. Trump stood there in 2016 and promised that he wouldn't allow a single plant to close.
However, plant closures and offshoring increased during the Trump administration, during which domestic auto production plummeted from nearly 12.2 million units in 2016, the last full year of the Obama administration, to under 8.2 million units in 2020, Trump's last full year in office, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. While Covid-19 affected that year's production, fewer than 10.9 million vehicles were manufactured domestically in pre-pandemic 2019.
Fain, who noted this trend, called Trump the "job-killer-in-chief."
The UAW chief also mocked reports that numerous attendees wearing "autoworkers for Trump" T-shirts at a Tuesday rally for the Republican in Detroit weren't actually autoworkers.
"It's pathetic. Everything he does is a con," Fain said of Trump.
Referring to the multibillionaire CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla, Fain added that Trump "sits there and applauds Elon Musk for trying to fire striking workers, and they laugh about that."
"And that's why I said Donald Trump is a scab," the union leader added, using the term for nonunion workers who cross picket lines during strikes.
During last year's UAW strike for a fair contract, President Joe Biden made history by becoming the first-ever sitting U.S. president to join striking workers on a picket line. Four years earlier, Harris, then a U.S. senator from California running for president, walked a picket line with striking UAW workers in Reno, Nevada.
The Biden-Harris administration has often been called the most pro-labor presidency in modern history.
Fain's remarks came hours before Trump infuriated many Michiganders by telling local business owners at a Detroit rally that if Harris wins, the entire country will "end up being like Detroit"—which is in the midst of an economic revival.
Congressman Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), who represents the city,
admonished Trump to "keep Detroit and our people out of your mouth."
"Detroit is a city with a booming economy, diverse culture, and some of the best people in America," he said, adding that the heavily Democratic city "will elect Kamala Harris."
Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes said Thursday: "Plain and simple, a second Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster for Michigan workers. His agenda will raise costs and kill jobs."
"When he was president," she added, "Trump gave tax cuts to the wealthy at the expense of Michigan's working families, tanked our economy during the pandemic, and only helped the rich get richer."
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Trump Warns Detroit Voters Whole Country Will 'Be Like Detroit' If Harris Wins
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the city is "defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities—something Donald Trump could never understand."
Oct 10, 2024
Federal, state, and local leaders in Michigan took issue with former President Donald Trump's latest apparent voter mobilization strategy in the crucial battleground state: insulting its largest city while delivering a campaign speech there on Thursday.
At the Detroit Economic Club, the Republican presidential nominee told business owners that if Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election, the entire country will "end up being like Detroit."
"The whole country will be like, you want to know the truth? It'll be like Detroit if she's your president. You're gonna have a mess on your hands," he said. "We're not going to let her do that to this country. We're not gonna let it happen."
Trump didn't specify why Detroit residents should recoil at the thought of a country that resembles their city, long recognized as an industrial and cultural center in the Rust Belt. He has previously attacked other large cities, calling Milwaukee "horrible" weeks before the Republican National Convention and saying at Temple University in Philadelphia that the city is "one of the most egregious places anywhere in the world."
The former president has also frequently lambasted Chicago, comparing violence in the nation's third-largest city to that of a war zone.
Critics have accused Trump of singling out cities with large Black and brown communities for his vitriol. More than 77% of Detroit residents are Black.
U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), who represents the city in Congress, implored Trump to "keep Detroit and our people out of your mouth."
"Detroit is a city with a booming economy, diverse culture, and some of the best people in America," he said, adding that the heavily Democratic city "will elect Kamala Harris."
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a Democrat, also responded to Trump's comment, pointing to the success of the city's major sports teams, growing population, and sinking crime rate.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, also a Democrat, suggested the "grit" of Detroit, which has made a significant rebound since becoming the largest city in U.S. history to declare bankruptcy in 2013, is likely unfamiliar to Trump.
Detroit, she said, is "defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities—something Donald Trump could never understand."
An Emerson College poll out Thursday showed Trump and Harris tied at 49% in Michigan.
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'Uncommitted' Leaders to Harris: 'Voters Need to See You Turn a New Page on Gaza'
"It's clear to us that Vice President Harris can lead our country's Gaza policy to a more humane place," said Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh. "We hope she will meet with us so we can move forward to discuss an arms embargo."
Aug 08, 2024
Leaders of the Uncommitted National Movement aimed at pushing the U.S. government to end its support for Israel's assault on Gaza called on Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday to commit to a policy change and to follow through with her statement—made to them in a brief meeting Wednesday evening just before her campaign rally in Detroit—that she was open to discussing an arms embargo.
Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, two Michigan voters who co-founded the Uncommitted National Movement earlier this year, spoke with Harris and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, about the deep personal connection many people in the crucial swing state feel to the 2.3 million Palestinians who have been under siege in Gaza since last October.
Elabed broke down in tears as she told Harris that she meets "with community members every day in Michigan who are losing tens and hundreds of family members in Gaza."
"Michigan voters want to support you, but we need a policy that will save lives in Gaza right now," Elabed told the Democratic presidential nominee. "Right now, we need an arms embargo. Will you meet with us to talk about an arms embargo?"
According to a statement released by Uncommitted after the rally, Harris "shared her sympathies and expressed an openness to a meeting with Uncommitted leaders to discuss an arms embargo."
On Thursday morning, however, Harris' national security adviser, Phil Gordon, said on social media that the vice president "does not support an arms embargo on Israel" and "will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups."
Elabed and Alawieh responded to Gordon's remarks by saying they would "continue engaging because people we love are being killed with American bombs."
"When we told Vice President Harris that members of our community in Michigan are losing dozens and hundreds of their family members to Israel's assault in Gaza, she said back: 'It's horrific,'" said the leaders of the movement, which includes 700,000 supporters across the country. "It's clear to us that Vice President Harris can lead our country's Gaza policy to a more humane place. We hope she will meet with us so we can move forward to discuss an arms embargo."
Elabed and Alawieh urged Harris to unite the Democratic Party "by correcting course because our democracy cannot afford to pay the bill for disregarding Palestinian lives should it come due in November."
The leaders engaged with Harris and Walz amid outrage from human rights groups over a leaked video that apparently showed Israel Defense Forces members gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman military base. World Health Organization officials on Wednesday warned that without a cease-fire, polio virus that has been found in wastewater in Gaza could spread widely and cause an epidemic among a population that has suffered mass displacement since October, and United Nations experts said last month that famine has taken hold in the enclave due to Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid—which Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich suggested Monday was "justified and moral."
As several House Democrats told the Biden administration in March, advocates for an arms embargo on Israel are only demanding that the federal government follow U.S. laws, including the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act—Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which states that the U.S. cannot provide military aid to any country that is prohibiting or restricting the delivery of U.S. assistance into an area.
"We want to support you, Vice President Harris, and our voters need to see you turn a new page on Gaza policy that includes embracing an arms embargo to save lives," Alawieh, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, told Harris on Wednesday evening.
Although the leaders' meeting with the Democratic ticket reportedly left them feeling relatively hopeful about Harris' "openness to engaging with the demands of Uncommitted voters," the vice president's reaction to a group of protesters who chanted, "We won't vote for genocide!" during her rally speech left some advocates calling on Harris to bring the same empathy regarding Gaza that Elabed and Alawieh saw to her public appearances.
Harris first responded to the protesters by saying, "I'm here because we believe in democracy. Everyone's voice matters. But I am speaking now." After the chanting continued, she said, "If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I'm speaking."
Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid said Harris had missed "a golden opportunity to show empathy to people in deep pain because their family is suffering torture, famine, displacement, and genocide."
"They don't want Trump to win," said Rashid. "They want the suffering to stop. Don't push them away. Invite them in. She should remedy this ASAP."
Hours before the rally and Harris' meeting with Elabed and Alawieh, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) posted on social media a video taken at an event he held in Portland, Maine on July 27, in which an attendee told the senator that there are many uncommitted voters across the country "who are absolutely wanting to see Donald Trump defeated, but the big issue is Gaza."
"What can we do to convince Harris that she must take a different position now?" asked the voter.
The American people do not support Netanyahu’s horrific war.
We must remind the Democratic Party: If they want young people to get involved in the political process, they must change their approach to Gaza. pic.twitter.com/u7IXjXBjs2
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 7, 2024
Sanders approached the issue with support for voters who are unsure they can back a candidate who won't terminate the billions of dollars in military aid the U.S. has provided to Israel since last October, noting that opposition to the current U.S. policy is hardly radical; numerous polls have shown a majority of Americans don't support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's U.S.-backed actions in Gaza and that conditioning military aid could improve support for the Democratic candidate.
"What we have got to do in a grassroots way is, say to the Democratic Party, is that the policies that you have right now regarding Netanyahu are wrong," said Sanders. "And if you really want to get young people involved in this campaign, the time is now to change those policies.
The Sunrise Movement, a member of the Green New Deal Network, which endorsed Harris days after Biden announced he was stepping aside in the presidential race, called on the vice president to "accept the meeting invitation from the Uncommitted National Movement and turn the page on Biden's unconditional support for Netanyahu."
"Millions of young people are watching what you do next," said the Sunrise Movement. "Don't miss this moment."
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