President Biden visited two key swing states on Labor Day to tout Democratic accomplishments and go on offense against Republicans with the midterm elections just two months away.
Biden first made a stop in Wisconsin to speak at Milwaukee Laborfest, followed by a stop in Pittsburgh where he delivered remarks to the United Steelworkers of America Local Union 2227.
While Biden used both events to demonstrate his support for labor unions, he also used the trips as campaign stops to show what his administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress has accomplished while he’s been in office.
The “…American Rescue Plan also created and saved millions of jobs. Why? Because here in the state of Pennsylvania, and almost every state, didn’t have enough money to keep teachers on the payroll, to keep firefighters on the job, to keep police on the job, to keep people, nurses and docs on the job,” Biden said while in Pennsylvania.
“And so what’d we do? We, in fact, gave them the money to make sure they did it. And this governor, your governor, spent it well.”
He also touted the bipartisan infrastructure law; aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act, including an aspect of the law that allows some drug prices to be negotiated by Medicare; and legislation boosting the domestic semiconductor industry amid a critical computer chip shortage.
Biden used the opportunity to go on offensive against Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), one of the most vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection in November, blasting him for comments that he thought Medicare and Social Security should be annually approved.
While in Pennsylvania, the president didn’t invoke Republican Senate nominee Mehmet Oz’s name but instead went after former President Trump more prominently in his remarks.
“All of us love the country. But you can’t love the country and say how much you love it when you only accept one of two outcomes from the election. Either you won or you were cheated. It doesn’t work that way,” Biden said, referring to Trump’s baseless allegations that the last election was stolen from him.
And borrowing language he used during his prime-time speech last Thursday, he also went after “MAGA Republicans.”
“Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican. Not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with mainstream Republicans my whole career. But the extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress have chosen to go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate and division,” Biden said in Wisconsin.
While Democratic Senate challenger Mandela Barnes, who is taking on Johnson in November, was not president during Biden’s speech, Biden gave him a shout out during his remarks in Wisconsin.
Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman did attend the president’s event in the state. Biden quipped during his speech, “if I have to be in a foxhole, I want John Fetterman in there with me.”
Both Fetterman and Barnes are gearing up for tight races in critical battleground states that will help determine whether Democrats can retain control of the Senate past November.
The nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report rates Johnson’s seat as a “toss up” while it recently moved Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat from a “toss up” to “lean Democrat.”