The head of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union blasted former President Trump in front of a crowd of thousands in Detroit on Wednesday and called for support for Vice President Harris.
Sean Fein, who has been sparring with Trump for months, slammed the former president as a “scab who knows nothing about the auto industry.” He called on working-class Americans to support Harris, citing her record of standing up to corporations and supporting striking workers.
“To me, this election is really simple. It’s about one question, a question made famous in the labor movement: Which side are you on?” Fain said at a Harris campaign event in an airplane hangar.
“And that’s a simple issue in this election, because on one side you have a billionaire who serves himself and his fellow billionaires. He lied and cheated and stole his way to the top. He’s a stooge of the billionaire class,” Fain said. “And on the other side you have a strong, intelligent and, frankly, incredible woman who stood on the picket line with striking workers.”
Fain praised Harris as a leader both as a prosecutor and as a “champion of the working class” who has taken on corporate greed, and he welcomed her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D), who Fain had recommended as one of Harris’ top contenders when she was considering the nomination.
Fain pointed to Ford and General Motors’ closures of auto plants in Ohio, Baltimore and elsewhere under the Trump administration, which he contrasted with Harris’s standing on picket lines with striking UAW workers in 2019.
The UAW has previously supported President Biden, who has billed himself as the most pro-union president in history, and the group quickly solidified its support for the Democratic Party after Biden announced last week that he would not seek reelection, endorsing Harris as the party’s nominee.
Trump and Fain have been trading attacks for months, with the former president calling the UAW leader an “idiot,” “moron” and “stupid” and suggesting union members would support him in November.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the auto industry’s shift to electric vehicles, which the Biden administration has encouraged in an effort to create manufacturing jobs while addressing climate change.
But the former president told supporters at a rally last weekend that he had “no choice” but to support electric cars because he had the endorsement of Tesla founder Elon Musk.
Union workers could play a key role in Michigan, the U.S. auto manufacturing heartland that broke decades of steady Democratic support to elect Trump in 2016, only to see Biden win the state back in 2020.
