The head of the United Auto Workers union is publicly denouncing former President Donald Trump ahead of his visit next week to Detroit as part of a plea to current and former union members.
“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in an emailed statement. “We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”
In his Detroit speech, Trump may sense a political opportunity from the autoworkers strike, attempting to gain support from working-class Americans who are increasingly disappointed in the direction of the US economy. Trump’s rally would take place concurrently with the second Republican presidential primary debate in California, which Trump plans to skip. He also skipped the first debate.
Union members, once a reliable Democratic voting block, have gradually gravitated to Republican candidates, according to CNN polls and the AFL-CIO.
But Trump’s union rally is no sure bet. He has repeatedly criticized the popular Fain, a surprise winner of the union’s recent leadership election after running an aggressive campaign that captured the anti-establishment zeitgeist of the UAW workers. Yet Trump has told union members that the UAW president doesn’t hold their best interests at heart.
“The auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership, and their leadership should endorse Trump,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” this week.
Trump said that the union should completely reject the Biden administration’s push toward electric vehicles as “non-negotiable.”
In reality, there’s…
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