OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both traveled to Michigan this week to address striking United Auto Workers union members, but they delivered distinctly different messages.
And for Trump, that meant outing Biden as someone who claims to be a ‘blue collar’ guy but who’s never really gotten his hands dirty, unlike the real estate mogul.
After Biden only joined striking members on the picket line for about 12 minutes, he then flew to a Democratic fundraiser in California, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
“What has Corporate Joe Biden ever done for the working-class?” asked one user on the X platform.
“Sleepy Joe is using the #UAW picket line as a prop & a photo-op. And this guy knows it,” the user continued.
What has Corporate Joe Biden ever done for the working-class?
Sleepy Joe is using the #UAW picket line as a prop & a photo-op. And this guy knows it. pic.twitter.com/7r7ZBY7osO
— Empire Of Lies (@berningman16) September 26, 2023
Meanwhile, Trump addressed a pro-union and union member crowd outside a parts store in Detroit, where he suggested the only time Biden has gotten his hands dirty is by allegedly accepting foreign bribes.
The crux of Trump’s speech to the union was that, no matter what concessions the UAW won from the big three U.S. automakers, they would be moot within a couple of years due to the Biden administration’s rapid push to transition personal transportation to electric vehicles.
“Before I stepped into the political arena seven years ago, I spent my whole life working alongside of Americans just like you. I spent a lot of time with you. You just don’t know that, but I spent a lot of time with you and people just like you now,” Trump said at one point during the speech.
“I put everything on the line to fight for you. I’ve risked it all to defend the working class from the corrupt political class that has spent decades sucking the life, wealth, and blood out of this country,” he continued. “That’s why I’m here tonight to lay out a vision for a revival of economic nationalism and our automobile manufacturing lifeblood, which they’re sucking out of our country.”
“I want a future that protects American labor, not foreign labor,” he said. “The future that puts American dreams over foreign profits. And a future that raises American wages, that strengthens American industry, that builds national report, and that defends his country’s dignity, not squanders it all to build up foreign countries that hate us.
“And you know where they are. They’re located all over the world. But they’re mostly on the other side of the world. We don’t want that,” the leading GOP presidential frontrunner said.
“Under crooked Joe Biden, you have none of this. You have none of the things we want. Instead of economic nationalism, you have ultra-left-wing globalism. They hate our country. And the workers of America are getting, to put it very nicely, screwed. You’re getting screwed,” he noted further before making a startling prediction.
“Biden’s cruel and ridiculous electrical — think of this — he wants electric vehicle mandates that will spell the death of the U.S. auto industry. You know, it doesn’t matter. I watch it. You’re negotiating a contract. You’re all on picket lines and everything, but it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what you get because, in two years, you’re all going to be out of business. You’re not getting anything,” he said.
“What they’re doing to the auto industry and Michigan and throughout the country is absolutely horrible and ridiculous. Hundreds of thousands of American jobs, your jobs, will be gone forever because crooked Joe Biden is selling out, but I don’t think it’s him. I don’t think he actually knows what the Hell he’s doing,” said Trump, noting further: “He’s selling you out to China.”
