WATERTOWN, Wis. — Former President Donald Trump bragged Friday that Teamsters President Sean O’Brien has accepted his invitation to speak at next month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
It’s a major achievement for Trump, who is narrowly leading President Biden in polls among union members and other groups that have traditionally supported Democrats for decades.
In this year’s survey, Biden and Trump are tied Among union members in the six battleground states that Biden won in 2020 – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – his approval rating was 47%.
As head of a union with such a checkered history as the International Brotherhood of Trucking Drivers, O’Brien is not without controversy.
Post columnist Charlie Gasparino criticized O’Brien last year for failing to reach a compromise with the major labor union, Yellow, that cost the Teamsters 22,000 jobs.
Gasparino’s O’Brien has close ties to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), which may help explain his current friendship with Trump.
Sanders stepped in when O’Brien and Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) nearly got into a fistfight during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in November.
As The Post reported at the time, Mullin read out some social media posts O’Brien had made months earlier and suggested they discuss their differences. One “Stop trying to act tough at these Senate hearings. You know where I am. Everywhere,” he declared.
Marin, a former mixed martial artist, said: “Sir, this is the time, this is the place. Do you want to slip up? We are two consenting adults. Let’s end it here.”
“I’d love to do it right now,” O’Brien said, and the two men taunted each other.
Mullin then rose from his chair, and Committee Chair Sanders quickly stopped the situation from getting out of hand.
A few days later, in a conversation with Fox Business Network host Neil Cavuto, O’Brien refused to endorse Joe Biden for president.
Trump announced O’Brien’s acceptance on Truth Social.
A follow-up email from his campaign noted that “President Trump participated in a roundtable discussion in January with Teamsters President O’Brien, Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman, the union’s Executive Committee, and rank-and-file members,” which O’Brien described as “an in-depth and productive discussion of the labor issues that are most important to the Teamsters.”
