Former President Donald Trump took aim at President Joe Biden's push for electric vehicles Tuesday as both prepare to meet with striking United Auto Workers in Michigan.
"Joe Biden's draconian and indefensible Electric Vehicle mandate will annihilate the U.S. auto industry and cost countless thousands of autoworkers their jobs," Trump said in a statement Tuesday before Biden's planned picket-line visit in Wayne County, Michigan, at noon.
"The only thing Biden could say today that would help the striking autoworkers is to announce the immediate termination of his ridiculous mandate. Anything else is just a feeble and insulting attempt to distract American labor from this vicious Biden betrayal."
Biden hopes to lock up the union's endorsement with a visit to a striking UAW picket line in Detroit with UAW President Shawn Fain the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Biden hopes to show solidarity with the workers.
The union has withheld the key endorsement over Biden's transition plan to electric vehicles in the name of climate change.
Even though union workers typically vote for Democrats, Trump is also traveling to the state on Wednesday to attend events with the striking UAW workers rather than attending the Republican National Committee primary debate in California.
Trump is taking his message directly to the source about how Biden's planned transition away from gasoline powered vehicles will hurt the auto workers and their families.
"Crooked Joe should be ashamed to show his face before these hardworking Americans he is stabbing in the back," Trump's statement said. "With Biden, it doesn't matter what hourly wages they get, in three years there will be no autoworker jobs as they will all come out of China and other countries. With me, there will be jobs and wages like you've never seen before. Our economy will grow!"
According to the Times, Trump won Michigan in 2016, but lost it by more than 150,000 votes to Biden in 2020.
While Biden calls himself the "most pro-union president in history," Trump is navigating his general anti-union stance to also be on the side of union workers in the auto industry by opposing the fast move to electric vehicles.
Biden has called on workers and management to resolve their dispute since the strike started Sept. 15 to avoid a further deterioration of the economy from its ripple effects, the Times reported.
According to the report, the White House has not specifically said which provisions of an agreement between the parties it would support.
Charles Kim ✉
Charles Kim, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in reporting on news and politics.
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