Democrats sounded the alarm after Trump outmaneuvered Joe Biden in the auto union strike with his plan to deliver a speech in Detroit next week.
Trump decided to forego the upcoming Republican primary debate, scheduled for Wednesday, September 27, at the Reagan Library in California. Instead, he will be in Detroit, speaking to a crowd of more than 500 current and former union members.
For the first time in the history of the 150,000-member United Auto Workers Union, members went on strike against the “Big 3” manufacturers at midnight Thursday evening after no agreement was reached.
The ‘Big 3’ includes Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the newly formed merger of Fiat Chrysler and the PSA Group.
“The union’s key demands include a 40% hourly wage increase; a shortened working week of 32 hours; a shift back to traditional pensions; the abolition of pay levels; and a restoration of cost-of-living adjustments. Other topics on the table include improved retirement benefits and better vacation and family leave benefits,” CNBC reported.
The automakers pushed back on union demands, saying their proposals would put the companies out of business.
Democrats are quietly panicking over Trump’s planned speech in Detroit, while Joe Biden’s White House grapples with how to handle the historic strike.
“Trump got us. If we announce that we are going now, it will look like we are only going because of Trump,” said a national Democratic strategist, according to Politico. “We have waited too long. That is the challenge.”
According to Politico, a union consultant said Trump “had Biden boxed in.”
“[Trump] There really are people who know what they are doing. He has Biden boxed in. It was quite genius,” said the union advisor.
Politico reported:
Some Joe Biden allies fear Donald Trump has outsmarted them during the auto workers’ strike with his decision to go to Detroit for a speech next week.
Democrats close to the White House said they saw Trump’s trip as a clearly cynical ploy to gain political advantage from the current United Auto Workers strike at three factories. But they also worry that this is a sign that the ex-president has run a more refined campaign than in previous cycles — and that Biden’s operation needs to intensify it.
“We should not underestimate Donald Trump. He is a survivor and this is going to be a very hard-fought campaign,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), a member of Biden’s national advisory board who was in Wayne, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio. Monday with UAW members. “We need a message for the American working class. Right now, they’re still hurting from gas prices, food prices, housing costs, energy costs, and they feel like their wages aren’t rising fast enough, and they feel like the very rich are getting too much of their income. the rewards. That’s what I heard on the picket lines.
Earlier this month, Joe Biden, the most “pro-union president in American history,” arrogantly brushed aside a question about the impending car strike.
“No, I’m not worried about that [an auto workers] hit until it happens. I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Biden told reporters on the tarmac in Philadelphia on Labor Day.
WATCH: BIDEN (Sept. 5): “No, I’m not worried about that [an auto workers] hit until it happens. I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
It happened.
pic.twitter.com/rsNNDzGzE0— Officer Lew (@officer_Lew) September 15, 2023
The autoworkers are not happy with Joe Biden.
Autoworkers lashed out at “pro-union” Joe Biden last week on the eve of a historic United Auto Workers union strike.
A dozen union members gathered Thursday evening in Kokomo, Indiana, the hometown of United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain.
One worker expressed frustration with Joe Biden and his policies as the clock moved closer to midnight last Thursday.
“I don’t know what he did,” Gary Quick, president of Local 685, said Thursday evening at a union building in Kokomo, Indiana, according to Politico. “Ask him. I don’t think he knows what he did. Serious. I’m not trying to be mean.”
Another union member, Denny Butler, denounced Joe Biden and the Democratic party.
“They’re all full of shit,” Butler said, according to Politico. “We haven’t had a president there in years, with the exception of Trump, which was really for the people, all the way back to the time of Reagan.”
“Historically, man, if you didn’t vote Democrat years ago and you were a union member, sometimes you got taken down,” he said. “Democrats were for working people. That stuff has changed. I’ll tell you what: the Democratic Party wasn’t what it was 20, 30 years ago.”