Former President Donald Trump, while speaking at a non-unionized automotive parts supplier in Michigan, criticized President Joe Biden for announcing that he would join United Auto Workers striking on the picket lines days after Trump made his intentions known about traveling to the midwest state.
Biden “came to Michigan to pose for photos at the picket line,” as Trump put it, “but it’s his policies that sent Michigan auto workers to the unemployment line.”
“He only came after I announced that I would be here. You know he announced quite a bit later,” Trump said at Drake Enterprises, about 30 minutes from Detroit.
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Biden revealed his plans last Friday—four days after The New York Times reported that his predecessor was planning a trip of his own.
“He spoke for a few seconds,” Trump added dismissively.
Trump spent most of his speech criticizing the U.S. president, instead of his 2024 GOP candidate opponents who took to the stage for the second GOP primary debate in California moments after Trump’s appearance.
The former president had previously confirmed he would skip the event in favor of his Michigan trip, claiming his impressive lead in the polls meant there was no point.
The auto industry, under Biden, was “being assassinated,” Trump claimed, arguing that the advance of electric vehicles will ultimately crush manufacturing in the state.
On Tuesday, Biden became the first sitting president in U.S. history to join a picket line, telling the striking workers, “The middle class built this country. And unions built the middle class. That’s a fact. Let’s keep going. You deserve what you’ve earned, and you’ve earned a hell of a lot more than you get paid now.”
Biden had been invited by UAW President Shawn Fain, whose group had endorsed Biden in the lead-up to the 2020 election but has not yet given its support this time around mainly due to concerns over the president’s electric vehicle initiative.
Yet Fain had even tougher words for Trump in an interview Tuesday.
“I see no point in meeting with him because I don’t think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for,” Fain said on CNN. “He serves the billionaire class and that’s what’s wrong with this country.”
