Trump team takes credit for Biden’s trip to meet autoworkers

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign is attempting to take credit for President Biden’s announced trip to Michigan to meet with striking United Auto Workers (UAW) union members, claiming Biden is going because Trump previously announced a trip to the state.

“Joe Biden’s trip to Michigan is nothing more than a cheap photo op as he finds himself between a rock and a political hard place,” reads the statement from Trump Campaign Senior Advisor Jason Miller. “The only reason Biden is going to Michigan on Tuesday is because President Trump announced he is going on Wednesday.”

The statement went on to say that if Trump hadn’t announced his trip to Michigan on Tuesday then Biden wouldn’t have followed suit.

“If President Trump had said nothing, Biden would be giving UAW workers in Michigan ‘the East Palestine treatment,'” the statement said, referencing Biden’s handling of the train derailment in Ohio early this year.

Trump announced on Tuesday that he would forgo the second GOP primary debate in favor of delivering primetime remarks to current and former union workers in Detroit. Trump also skipped the first primary debate in August and instead sat down for an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Biden, who was facing pressure to counter Trump’s announcement, announced Friday that he will travel to Michigan next week to meet with UAW workers striking for better pay and benefits amid a contract dispute with the “Big Three” automakers — Ford, General Motors (GM) and Stellantis.

Trump’s campaign also took the opportunity to once again criticize the Biden administration’s electric vehicle (EV) policies, which union workers have expressed concerns about.

“Biden is still hell-bent on destroying all of the auto jobs he’s purporting to care about,” the statement said. “His visit on Tuesday is completely meaningless unless he withdraws his Insane EV Mandate and rebukes his Green New Deal, which Biden will never do because he’s beholden to the Radical Left Eco-Loons in California. Joe Biden cares more about his extremist liberal base than he does about auto workers in Michigan or anywhere else in the United States.”

At the end of August, the Biden Administration announced the allocation of $12 billion to convert auto manufacturing facilities into plants for hybrid and electric vehicles.

The White House’s announcement of Biden’s trip comes after UAW President Shawn Fain announced Friday afternoon an expansion of the union’s strike to include Stellantis and GM facilities at 38 locations across 28 states and extended an invitation to the president to join the picket line.

Fain on Tuesday promised more strikes if progress wasn’t made by Friday.

Biden has consistently called himself the most pro-union president ever, but Fain has refused to endorse his reelection campaign, saying endorsements are earned and actions, not words, are needed to earn UAW’s support.