What A Day - Harris's Working Class Messaging Finds Union Support

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump are working hard to earn the support of a key voting bloc this election: union voters. While most major unions have kept up the tradition of backing Democrats by endorsing Harris, two of the country’s biggest unions — the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the International Association of Fire Fighters — opted not to endorse either candidate, citing internal divisions among their ranks. April Verrett, president of the Service Employees International Union, joins us to talk about why her union endorsed Harris, and what’s driving divisions within unions.And in headlines: Georgia’s Republican secretary of state says local officials are prepared to fight election misinformation, A Nevada man says he’ll sue a California county sheriff who accused him of plotting to assassinate Trump, and NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is on its way to Jupiter’s ocean moon.Show Notes:Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Tuesday, October 15th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What A Day, the show where we would love to compete in Hong Kong's Space Out competition, where all you have to do is just zone out without doing anything or falling asleep. Staring off into the abyss for 90 consecutive minutes? Buddy, that's just Sunday. On today's show, the suspect found with guns and fake tickets to a rally supporting former President Donald Trump threatens to sue law enforcement because, actually, he loves Trump. Plus, Dems focus on the indigenous vote in battleground states. But first, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are working hard to earn the support of a key voting bloc this election, union voters.

This week, Harris is campaigning in three major swing states with strong ties to organized labor, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. During a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania on Monday, Harris reiterated her promise to fight for working families. I will always put the middle class and working families first. I come from the middle class and I will never forget where I come from. And most major unions have kept up the tradition of backing Democrats by endorsing Harris. She's earned support from the United Auto Workers, the AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers, the American Federation of Teachers, the list goes on. But there are two major union endorsements she did not win, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the International Association of Firefighters. Both opted not to endorse a candidate for the

White House this year, even though they both backed President Biden in 2020. During an interview with PBS, the head of the Teamsters, Sean O'Brien, said internal polls showed union members split between the two candidates. The polling would suggest that people are favorable in voting for Trump, just as well as they may be favorable for voting for Vice President Harris. A lot of local Teamsters and firefighter chapters did throw their support behind Harris. Still, despite Trump's well-documented support for anti-union policies, polls show the former president has a shot at capturing a potentially historic share of the labor vote. A Fox News poll from last month showed Harris leading Trump among union households, but only by about six points.

Biden won the block by low double digits four years ago. So for more on the internal divide we're seeing among union voters, I spoke with April Verrett. She's the president of the Service Employees International Union. It's one of the largest unions in the United States, representing nearly 2 million workers in the service industry. It endorsed Harris earlier this year. April, welcome to What A Day. Thank you so much for having me. What are some of the policies that led to your union's endorsement of Kamala Harris? Kamala Harris has always used every lever at her disposal to stand up for working people.

And we know her to be a leader who has stood with us, walked the picket lines, walked the day in the shoes of our members, visited the border to meet with immigrants and their families. And she's done everything in her power to make life better for working people and to create the future that we all need together so that we can all thrive. Now, the Trump-Vance ticket is clearly trying to recreate some of Trump's successes with union workers that he had in 2016 and some in 2020, touting that the GOP is now the party of the working class. What's your response to that view? I'm sorry, I just have to chuckle because it's utterly ridiculous. If you look at the actual policies that Trump put in place,

like trying to defund the National Labor Relations Board, putting corporate leaders as the heads of the NLRB. It's laughable to me that they try to paint this picture of them being everyday men when they've only stood on the side of corporations and billionaires and mocked union members, right? They talk about firing striking workers. He talked recently about firing workers rather than paying them overtime. And so if we get beyond the smoke and mirrors of this narrative that they're trying to spin, it's not hard to know that they're just really kind of full of it. So why do you think that some big unions have declined to endorse Kamala Harris? Well, the labor movement isn't a monolith, right? We're not all on the left of the political spectrum. In my union, our members

are 30% identified as Republican. And so we have to be able to have real conversations inside of our democratic institution. You know, we came together and made the decision that Kamala Harris is the best choice for our union and our members. I can only assume other unions do the same thing. Yeah, I think that we see a ton of coverage of how Democrats have seen a decline in support from union workers. But it's important to remember that the main worker demographic that Trump is popular with is white men, while Harris maintains high levels of approval from women and people of color in the workforce. So it stands to me that like, you know, when Trump talks about the working class, he's talking about white dudes, steel workers. And when I think about the working class, I think about baristas and waitresses and people working in the service economy. So what do you see as the driving force between this divide and the narrative that Harris can't count on the working class vote?

Well, I think the first thing that's important to remember is that this narrative that Donald Trump and Vance and others on the right try to spin, it's not even a dog whistle anymore, right? I think it is a very loud bullhorn that is used to divide us by race and more often than not also divide us by gender, as opposed to some of us, Kamala Harris included, who talk about an economy where everyone has an opportunity to thrive. And in our union, where we represent 2 million service and care workers who are not the people that are thought about when people traditionally think about labor, they think about unions. They don't think about home care workers. They don't think about airport support workers who push wheelchairs and handle baggage. They don't think about janitors and security

officers or nurses and medical assistants. And so I think part of it is unpacking who the working class is in this America. We no longer function strictly on a manufacturing economy. Our economy is one undergirded by our service sector. And so we have to be more inclusive and think more about the folks that actually do that work. How is SEIU organizing for Harris-Walls in these last few weeks before Election Day? Because I know you're probably having a ton of conversations with union voters who may be on the fence. What are you saying? As much as we support Vice President Harris and are incredibly excited about Governor Walz, they are not the reason why we want people to go out and vote for them. We are casting our votes for us. And the folks at

the top of the ticket are going to be our champions to give us the opportunity that we need to build our power to fight for the future that we want to create. Whether it's the folks that's running for president or vice president or the House or the Senate or governor or attorney general or dog catcher, our union is about uniting working people to elect champions for us. And so that's what we're saying. And I'm so super proud of our $200 million program, one of the largest in the country that is geared toward reaching out

to 6 million high opportunity voters, folks that don't always get talked to. Some people refer to them as low information or infrequent. I think of us as high opportunity, right? It's people of color, it's first time voters, it's young people that have been disenfranchised from elections, right? They're not the folks that are the first to be engaged. But we're hitting the doors. We've already knocked over 3 million doors. We've talked to over 4 million voters. And we're going to make sure working people make the difference in this election.

April, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me. That was my conversation with Service Employees International Union President April Verrett. We'll get to the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. And now, the news. Headlines.

This year, what we're going to do is the first time in America ever, we're going to be able to audit every single race that has been cast. Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger gave an interview with the Washington Post on Monday and was asked how he's preparing to combat election misinformation this year. Here's part of his response. So everything we've done is to make sure that we can prove the accuracy and also then have, you know, belts and suspenders. So no matter what people say, we're actually going to say we've already checked that.

Raffensperger was the person who Donald Trump infamously pressured to, quote, find 11,780 votes in order to defeat Joe Biden in Georgia during the 2020 election fraudulently. And while Raffensperger did stand up to Trump in that instance, he's also been supportive of many of the suppressive voting policies the GOP is pushing nationwide, like voter ID laws and voter roll purges. Last month, the NAACP sued Raffensperger in response to his enforcement of a new Georgia law that the civil rights group alleges would disenfranchise many already marginalized voters. The Nevada man arrested in an alleged assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump has threatened to sue Riverside County, according

to the Los Angeles Times. He told the Times that his lawyers are drawing up paperwork to sue over false claims made by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. The suspect, identified as Fem Miller, was arrested with two loaded guns near a Trump rally in Coachella, California on Sunday before being released on $5,000 bail. He claims to have brought the weapons for self-defense after receiving death threats over his independent media company, the America Happens Network. Miller released a statement on his Rumble channel, a right-wing alternative to YouTube. I've never been to shooting range and I haven't shot these guns. Words of the wise, no matter your political affiliation or motivation, don't bring guns to a presidential rally. Bad idea! To mark Indigenous Peoples Day, the Democratic National Committee announced a six-figure ad campaign that will target Native voters in Arizona, North Carolina, Montana, and Alaska.

Most of the ads will be placed in Native-owned media outlets. Last week, Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz spoke with tribal leaders in Arizona, and he noted that several states with significant Native populations will be key to the outcome of this election. Those are swing states that will make a difference. Those are important states, and they're states that have important Indigenous populations and the Native vote that can get out there. During that speech, Walz emphasized the importance of doing more than just asking for votes, by also delivering on policies that help Native communities. According to the climate-focused news outlet Grist, federal funding for tribal nations increased by 50% under the Biden administration compared to

the Trump administration. NASA launched its Europa Clipper spacecraft Monday afternoon from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Clipper will travel 1.8 billion miles to Jupiter's moon Europa, which has a massive underground ocean, double the amount of water on Earth, which NASA believes could support life. 3, 2, 1, ignition. And liftoff. Liftoff of Falcon Heavy with Europa Clipper, unveiling the mysteries of an enormous ocean lurking beneath the icy crust of Jupiter's moon, Europa. The launch had previously been set for last week, but was delayed by Hurricane Milton.

Scientists say that discovering life so far away from the sun would mean life is relatively common in the universe, which seems like the perfect time to use this platform to implore scientists about an issue I'm extremely passionate about. We should absolutely never, ever, under any circumstances, be trying to contact alien life. They don't want to talk to us, and I don't want to talk to them. Seriously, watch any movie. And that's the news. One more thing. Conspiracy theories are kind of an american tradition of sorts like apple pie but terrible we've had conspiracy theories since the election of 1800 was rife with false rumors that john adams was an illuminati mastermind look it up the conspiratorial mindset is a bipartisan one

because the allure of hidden information is really, really powerful. You know who knows that? Donald Trump, who is among the most conspiratorial people in the world. He was an OG birther, and honestly, probably still is. He pushed conspiracy theories that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered by Hillary Clinton. And perhaps you'll recall, he seems to believe he won the 2020 presidential election, which he didn't. In fact, for someone who was actually president of the actual United States and actually had access to some of the world's most closely held secrets, Donald Trump would have you think that he literally believes anything anyone tells him. Let's take FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA workers

are in the midst of helping folks in North Carolina and Georgia and Florida and elsewhere recover from two massive hurricanes. But according to Donald Trump, FEMA is the midst of helping folks in North Carolina and Georgia and Florida and elsewhere recover from two massive hurricanes. But according to Donald Trump, FEMA is the center of a vast conspiracy. Here's Trump speaking at a rally in Michigan on October 3rd. They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them. See, here's the problem. That's fucking dumb. No one stole anything from FEMA. FEMA's operating budget actually has nothing to do with the funds used to help in disaster recovery. That money comes instead from the Disaster Relief Fund,

which is appropriated by Congress. Typically, the DRF is the first line of response to a disaster, then the president sends a formal request for more support. No hurricane recovery money went to anything besides hurricanes, and also, non-citizens can't vote. So, all in all, everything he said was wrong. It felt familiar. Mr. Madison, what you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard.

At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Now, I don't know if you know this, but Donald Trump says insane shit every single day. So often that it tends to get kind of lost. But it shouldn't. Because his conspiratorial ramblings have real-world effects on real people, because some people believe him. So while FEMA workers are doing their best to help everyday Americans dig out from not one,

but two natural disasters, they're doing it under the constant threat of violence, coming from not only the worst people you know on the internet, stating that FEMA workers are trying to steal lithium from some secret mine somewhere, but from the former president of the United States. Here's FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell in an interview with CNN. We really have just got to stop this rhetoric, because what it's doing is it's putting fear in the people that we're not going to be there to help them. And I worry that they won't register for assistance with us

and get access to the critical resources that they are eligible for. And here's former FEMA Administrator Pete Ganner talking with ABC. It's the trifecta here in North Carolina. It's FEMA in town. It's Helene. And it is, I think, the pending election. And you mix that all together with these groups that have some goal to sow mistrust in their government. And this is what you get.

And here's what can happen when some people believe Trump's conspiratorial nonsense. People get hurt. The Rutherford County Sheriff's Office says they arrested a man who's accused of threatening to harm FEMA employees. See, here's what gets me. Either Donald Trump is the most gullible person who has ever lived, so gullible that it is an actual wonder that he is able to maintain object permanence and not just walk into doors all day. Or he's doing it all on purpose because he wants the people who trust him and

believe in him to distrust literally everything else. Former presidents, their own memories of the past, everything, everything but him. Before we go, every day at Crooked Media, we're working to build a progressive, independent media company at a time when trustworthy editorial voices are more important than ever. And no matter who wins in 2024, we're committed to seeing our mission through. But we can't do it without your support. And the best way to do that is by subscribing to Friends of the Pod.

For a limited time, we're offering 25% off new annual subscriptions. Our biggest deal yet. If you're already a monthly subscriber, upgrading to an annual plan is quick and easy. Join Friends of the Pod today to help our mission, and help yourself to exclusive shows, ad-free Pod Save America, and much more. Head over to crooked.com slash friends to learn more.

That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, stare off into the abyss, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just fun books about the election of 1800, like cool people who are also me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston and support union workers. What A Day is a production of Crooked Media.

It's recorded by Jarek Centeno and mixed by Bill Lance. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michelle Aloy. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Clare. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gillyard and Kashaka. Bye.