The NPR Politics Podcast - Growing Public Support For Unions Helped Push Biden To Picket Line

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

In what is likely a first, the sitting president of the United States joined a picket line. Biden made a brief stop in Michigan wearing a ball cap and quarter-zip to address picketing auto workers through a megaphone. Trump will campaign with auto workers tomorrow.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, and national political correspondent Don Gonyea.The podcast is was produced by Casey Morell and Elena Moore. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Lindsay and two-month-old baby Liam, coming to you from our orchard in Hope, Idaho, where we are taking part in our daily routine of listening to the NPR Politics podcast and throwing the ball for our cattle dog, Mac. This podcast was recorded at 1.32 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, September 26th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll still be loving our daily routine. Here p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, September 26th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this,

but we'll still be loving our daily routine. Here's the show. Is listening to the politics podcast with your baby like listening to Beethoven or Mozart? I love that we're a part of your daily routine. Shout out to you for that. That makes me feel so special. And how about a shout out to the cattle dog? Come on. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the

White House. I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the White House. And I'm Don Gagne, national political correspondent. Today on the podcast, President Biden on the picket line outside of Detroit with striking auto workers. You guys, UAW, you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before. Made a lot of sacrifices, gave up a lot, and the companies were in trouble. But now they're doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well too. Don, we've talked on this podcast before about politically why it would make sense for President Biden to be out there. But you've racked your brain. This is basically unheard of to have a president on a picket line with striking workers.

Nobody can find a prior example of a sitting president on a picket line. Presidential candidates have gone to picket lines. Governors, senators, all kinds of dignitaries have visited a picket line. But there was something, I'll admit it, I'm somebody who's been on a lot of picket lines. As a reporter. As a reporter, as a reporter, exactly. And it struck me that this is quite a moment to actually see a president of the United States standing there amid all of those workers. And again, all of the trappings of the picket line were there as well, right? There were the placards that say UAW on strike or record profits, record contract. Biden was wearing a ball cap, a black cap with the white UAW logo emblazoned on the front.

And there wasn't a presidential podium and a presidential seal. This was in kind of keeping with the vibe of it being a real deal picket line. There was a bullhorn and Biden spoke through that bullhorn. UAW President Sean Fain did the same and actually delivered much longer remarks. And then Biden took the bullhorn again before doing kind of an impromptu receiving line where it was fist bumps, one after another, after another with these striking auto workers. And Asma, we have noted that the UAW has not officially endorsed President Biden yet in this campaign. They did endorse him in 2020, but they've held out on their endorsement. But I don't know, it's possible that having photo and video of the president of the United States surrounded by union workers next to and sharing a bullhorn with the UAW president, that's like a campaign ad there's a line that the president often says about how Wall Street didn't build this country.

It was the middle class who built this country. Unions built this country. It's a really common refrain you hear from President Biden. You also heard it from candidate Biden ahead of the 2020 election. It hit differently here with Biden next to the president of the UAW surrounded by striking workers speaking into a bullhorn. And look, whether or not the president has the official endorsement of the UAW, at the end of the day, this White House says he was invited by the president of the UAW, and he chose to come at their invitation. And that speaks volumes, especially a day ahead of

when former President Donald Trump is expected to go to Michigan. Before we get to Trump, I want to just talk about some specifics here, which is Biden is obviously saying, I'm with the workers. But in terms of the specific demands that the UAW is making, the White House, they're not a mediator, let's say, in the negotiations. Did this change any of that? There's not really a place for the White House to play a role at the table in the negotiations. What the White House can do, and we're seeing the president do it, is offer to help, offer resources if anybody should want them. Right now, it seems like the negotiations are proceeding apace as they do. There has been some progress we hear, at least with the Ford Motor Company

and the UAW, General Motors and Stellantis. It seems to be a little tougher sledding. But across the board, all three companies, there are still big, big issues to be settled yet. What this is, is the White House sacrificed a great deal over the past 15 years when the survival of the actual industry was at stake. So he's trying to be this force to move it in the direction he wants. It also helps a great deal that there are political considerations, even though that endorsement hasn't come just yet, at least. Well, and Asma, you mentioned the former president is going to be in Michigan tomorrow, sort of counter-programming the Republican debate, but also trying to drive a wedge between President Biden and union workers who did support him in 2020.

You know, a White House official told me, Tam, that ultimately the president wanted to come to the picket line, that he was considering doing this ever since the strike began. And he took up Sean Fain, the UAW president's invitation on Friday. But it is hard for me to imagine a scenario in which a sitting president of the United States ultimately chooses to put his thumb on the scale in a debate between a corporation and union workers if it were not for the fact that Donald Trump were also going to Michigan. There is no doubt that Democrats did not want Trump to suck up all the oxygen in the room and potentially chip away at any of the margins that President Biden won Michigan with in 2020. And it's hard

for me to imagine that this would have been happening if it were not for Trump coming to Michigan himself this week. Dawn, Trump's messaging on this centers around electric vehicles and the Biden administration's push on the auto industry to move towards electrification. And the union does have real issues with electrification, in part because these battery factories, many of them are non-union. The wages are much lower. The work is dangerous. There are real concerns among the union, among the United Auto Workers, about that move. But Trump, I don't know, like, how would you describe what his pitch is and whether it is being well received? His pitch is a lot like what we see him using in other instances. He is basically saying, I'm the one who cares about

what happens to you. I'm the one that has your back. He says explicitly that President Biden, though he does not call him President Biden, he calls him Crooked Joe every time, right? He says explicitly he wants to send your jobs overseas. He doesn't care about you. All he cares about are these unrealistic, as Trump would put it, environmental goals of converting the fleet to all electric vehicles. And just to fact check here, though, this push toward electric vehicles is a key component of the Inflation Reduction Act. This signature piece of legislation from the president, it actually requires that final assembly of electric vehicles in order to qualify for tax credits. That has to happen in North America. So definitely not China. Absolutely. Absolutely. And Donald Trump has

always been happy to ignore a fact like that in trying to vilify someone or something. Now, it is true, though, that electric vehicles are far less complicated mechanically and less complicated to build than internal combustion cars and trucks. So over time, they will require fewer workers to assemble them. That's part of what the UAW is looking for in these negotiations. It's one reason they're looking for a shorter work week, and they're also looking for better pensions, better pension protections, and greater job security. All right. Well, we're back. And as we talk about President Biden's visit to the picket lines, it reminds me of this conversation I had with Jim Messina, who ran the 2012 reelection campaign for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and him telling me just how much then vice president loved being in the presence of union members. Biden would call me and say, you got to get me out there with my guys.

And, you know, and he met union members. I mean, Biden has always been a union guy, but this is really taking it to another level. It is. And, you know, look, the White House, his campaign will point to the fact that even as a candidate, most recently in this 2020 election, Biden was on a picket line in Kansas City in 2019. But I will say, Tam, I'm just struck by, as you say, the fact that no president has done this before, because part of it seems to be about how much the culture in the country has changed that is allowing a sitting president to do this. Right. Like I look back to even the years under Obama and it would have been rather unthinkable for Obama to fundamentally pick a side, which is what Joe Biden is publicly doing in this moment. That just doesn't seem to be possible in previous years. I think part of that is when you look at public opinion polling,

unions are more popular than they have been in recent history. And so there seems to be, even the UAW, I saw limited polling on that people seem to be on the side of the striking workers. So yeah, the culture, the moment in this country is very different than where we were a decade ago. Yeah, I mean, Don, you've been covering the labor movement for for years. And this does feel like a different moment. I mean, like there are multiple strikes ongoing. There have been multiple labor disputes in the past year. And generally speaking, it's a pretty favorable market for workers. It certainly is. And I recall in strikes of yesteryear, so in the 80s and 90s, a great deal of public criticism of the strikers, that their pay was already good enough, that they were asking for too much, that they were going to hurt these companies. And it's not that that is 100% absent in this current round of negotiations. But overall, it is a very, very different tone in terms of people accepting and understanding where the unions

are coming from. And again, a lot of it is because of those steep, steep, steep concessions that the unions gave the companies when there was the brush with bankruptcy during the financial crisis. And the UAW and this particular UAW president, new to the job, Sean Fain, he's been there barely six months, has really been effective in framing this for the general public, I think. I do want to come back to one thing that we discussed earlier, which is that the UAW has not yet endorsed President Biden in the 2024 election. They're just trying to leverage more things from Biden before they ultimately do give him their endorsement, if they do give him their endorsement. Though it's hard to see how after this particular week they're not going to come around at some point. I mean, it also seems like a bit of a formality. The president of the UAW met Joe Biden, rode in the motorcade to the site of this picket line.

So I think endorsement or not is really rather symbolic, given everything that we've seen today. And Don, we're not expecting Trump to get the same treatment. The UAW has had nothing to do with the Trump visit. We will see autoworkers there. Donald Trump got a lot of autoworker votes. It's probably one of the main reasons why he carried Michigan back in 2016. So there will be a UAW presence, I think it's fair to say, at his rally up in Macomb County. But the UAW International, the official union, did not invite him and is not involved in the past week, has really been shoring up the coalitions that were important to getting him elected in the first place. That's right. You saw last week that he announced plans for this new climate core. Climate is a huge priority for a bunch of Democratic base voters, particularly young

voters. And then also on Friday, Biden held this event at the White House where he announced the creation of a new gun violence prevention office. That is also a huge priority for young voters. In fact, many young voters that I was interviewing leading up to this saidally even do interviews with voters across the base of the Democratic Party, there are concerns about whether or not Joe Biden's base will show up and that it does not lose some of these voters, potentially just having them stay home. I don't think the question is whether or not they will necessarily in droves go vote for a Republican, but whether they are enthused and whether they will show up to reelect Joe Biden. Well, that is it for today. And a note that we will be back in your feeds later than usual tomorrow, or shall we say early Thursday morning. We're going to be watching the GOP debate and we'll have a post-debate podcast for you. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid.

I also cover the White House. And I'm Don Gagne. I cover national politics. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.