IN WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden got a big boost on Wednesday from North America’s Building Trades Unions, a huge labor group that is now putting resources into the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. They praised his support for unions and his plan to change the tax code.
The leader of the Democrats got several standing ovations at the union’s conference in Washington, D.C., where he criticized Republican former President Donald Trump for not delivering on building projects and giving tax breaks to big businesses.
When Biden talked about Trump’s time as host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” he said, “He learned that telling people ‘You’re fired’ was something to laugh about.”
“And getting fired because you didn’t have any safety is “no joke,” Biden said to loud cheers. People, I guess that’s how you see the world from Mar-a-Lago, where Trump and his wealthy friends support the same failed “trickle-down” policies that have hurt working-class and union families for 40 years.
People in the union did laugh, though, when Biden made mean comments about Trump.
“Do you remember when he was trying to treat COVID and told you to just put some bleach in your vein?” “He missed, and it all got in his hair,” Biden said.
Biden said, “I shouldn’t have said that,” as the crowd stood up to applaud.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from the Trump administration will end at the end of 2025. Biden also told union members that it will be “expired and dead forever if I’m re-elected.”
As part of his plan, the president wants to raise taxes on billionaires, make the child tax credit bigger, and stop any tax hikes for people making less than $400,000.
Getting people to vote
There are more than 3 million NABTU members in the U.S. and Canada. The union is offering a “unprecedented field program” to get 250,000 members to support Biden’s campaign in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The United Auto Workers of America, another large union, had already backed Biden. They made their support official in January, just a few months after Biden marched with their strike workers in Michigan.
A news release from NABTU President Sean McGarvey said, “No elected official has shown our members and their families more respect than President Joe Biden.”
Infrastructure Act, CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act were all things that Biden’s administration did well, according to McGarvey. These laws “brought life-changing, opportunity-creating, generational change focused on the working men and women of this great country who have for far too long been clamoring for a leader to finally keep their word.”
After starting his work with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades in Philadelphia, McGarvey said some very hurtful things about Trump in an ad that aired Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“The only thing that’s different between Donald Trump in the 1980s and today is that he’s not afraid to show his bad side. “Our democracy, which we’ve worked for and loved, can’t fall apart because of the wrong leader at the wrong time,” McGarvey said.
In 2020, the group also backed Biden.
In a response to the gathering, Trump’s campaign said in an email that the president was “cognitively impaired” for reading a teleprompter for direction.
A post from the Republican National Committee Research account on X was shared by the campaign. It said, “BIDEN, reading from his teleprompter: ‘Four more years?'” Hold on!” All of it is fully staged.”
