Some liberals are reportedly upset that President Joe Biden, allegedly a big fan of Big Labor, a critical base of support for the Democratic Party, got played by former President Donald Trump.
According to Politico, some Democratic operatives believe Trump outmaneuvered Biden in reaching out to striking autoworkers.
Trump did so by announcing this week that he would skip the Sept. 27 Republican Party presidential debate in California and instead will visit with blue collar factory workers in Detroit.
“Democrats close to the White House said they saw Trump’s trip as a plainly cynical ploy to gain political advantage from the current United Auto Workers strike at three plants,” Politico noted.
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Yet those same Democrats — described by Politico as “startled” — offered grudging respect for Trump for beating Biden to the punch.
“We should not underestimate Donald Trump. He’s a survivor and this is going to be a very hard-fought campaign,” Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, told Politico.
“We need a message to working-class Americans. Right now, they’re still hurting in terms of gas prices, food prices, housing costs, utilities costs, and they don’t feel like their wages are going up fast enough, and they feel like the very wealthy are getting too much of the rewards. That’s what I heard on the picket lines.”
An unidentified union adviser added that Trump “is still himself and will say and do crazy s–t.” But, “he boxed Biden in. It was kinda genius.”
“Trump scooped us. Now if we announce we’re going, it looks like we’re just going because of Trump,” an unnamed national Democratic strategist told the outlet. “We waited too long. That’s the challenge.”
Not all Democrats agreed. Michigan Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee predicted to Politico that Trump’s move “backfires.”
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“Autoworkers, they know their interests and they know who stands with them,” he said.
Yet Politico also reported that UAW leaders are objecting to the Biden administration meddling in their negotiations with the carmakers.
The Detroit trip would be the second time this year Trump has outhustled Biden in a bid for working class votes.
The former president rushed to East Palestine, Ohio, just days after a chemical-carrying freight train derailed and poisoned the town’s environment.
Biden, meanwhile, still has not visited the community, nearly eight months after the incident.
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