On Labor Day, President Joe Biden spoke to union members in swing states. He paid lip service to these workplace concerns… but he also spent much of his time slamming the “MAGA Republicans” ahead of the elections this autumn.
During his address in Milwaukee, Biden reserved his harshest criticism for those who have adopted Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign cry. He highlighted episodes like last year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Biden said that many in the GOP are “full of anger, violence, hate, division.”
“But together we can, and we must, choose a different path forward,” Biden said. “A future of unity and hope. we’re going to choose to build a better America.”
Biden cautioned, “Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican.” However, Biden’s message appears to have fallen flat.
Many everyday, law-abiding Republicans objected to Biden’s remarks.
One Twitter user called Biden’s performance “nasty” and “angry.” Another user called Biden “The Great Divider.”
“Let him keep talking,” another observer said. “Americans can see for themselves how senseless, mean spirited and desperate Democrats are.”
Labor Day served as the occasion for Biden’s speech. The unofficial start of fall, Labor Day also traditionally starts a political busy season where campaigns scramble to excite voters for Election Day on Nov. 8. That’s when control of the House and Senate, as well some of the country’s top governorships, will be decided.
The holiday exists to commemorate the advances made in American workplaces.
“The middle class built America,” Biden told a workers’ gathering at park grounds in Milwaukee. “Everybody knows that. But unions built the middle class.”
Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to organized labor at a breakfast meeting with the Greater Boston Labor Council, declaring “When union wages go up, everybody’s wages go up.”
“When union workplaces are safer everyone is safer,” Harris said. “When unions are strong, America is strong.”
Later Monday, Biden flew to West Mifflin, outside Pittsburgh — returning to Pennsylvania for the third time in less than a week and just two days after his predecessor, Donald Trump, staged his own rally in the state.
Trump spoke Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre, near Scranton, where Biden was born. The president made his own Wilkes-Barre trip last week to discuss increasing funding for police, to decry GOP criticism of the FBI after the raid on Trump’s Florida estate and to argue that new, bipartisan gun measures can help reduce violent crime.
Two days after that, Biden went to Independence Hall in Philadelphia for a prime-time address denouncing the “extremism” of Trump’s fiercest supporters.
Trump has endorsed candidates in key races around the country and Biden is warning that some Republicans now believe so strongly in Trumpism that they are willing to undermine core American values to promote it. The president said Thursday that “blind loyalty to a single leader, and a willingness to engage in political violence, is fatal to democracy.”
Trump responded during his Saturday rally that Biden is “an enemy of the state.” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel tweeted Monday that Biden “is the most anti-worker president in modern history,” noting that high inflation had taken a bite out of American wages, income and savings.
The crowd jeered loudly as the president repeatedly chided Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin for voting against a Democratic-backed measure meant to lower prescription drug prices. The president also suggested Johnson and other congressional Republicans were willing to undermine Social Security.
Unions endorsements helped Biden overcome disastrous early finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire to win the 2020 Democratic primary, and eventually the White House. He has since continued to praise the unions as president.
In Pennsylvania, Biden addressed members of the United Steelworkers and noted that Trump is a “former, defeated president.”
Referencing Trump’s endless attempts to relitigate 2020 presidential election, Biden said, “You can’t love the country and say how much you love it when you only accept one of two outcomes of an election: Either you won or you were cheated.”
Biden faced criticism for avoiding the subject of some Democrats’ election denial. Biden could have promoted national unity by making such an acknowledgment about his own party’s past, critics say.
Both of the perennial presidential battleground states Biden visited Monday may provide key measures of Democrats’ strength before November. With prices still rising and the president’s approval ratings slightly better but remaining low, how much Biden can help his party in top races — and how much candidates want him to try — remains to be seen.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.