Biden secures the coveted backing of US auto union
President has courted the labour vote and appeared on a picket line last year during a strike against the big three US car giants.
Joe Biden has won the coveted election endorsement of America’s biggest car workers union, in a boost to his battle with Donald Trump for the crucial blue-collar vote.
The US President has courted the union vote and appeared on a United Auto Workers picket line last year during a strike against the big three US car giants.
“Our endorsements must be earned. Joe Biden has earned it,” UAW chief Shawn Fain told a cheering crowd in Washington on Wednesday, before Mr Biden took the stage in a union baseball cap.
Mr Fain said Mr Trump wanted to “screw the American working class”.
Union members booed when Mr Trump’s name was mentioned and shouted “Joe!” when Mr Fain asked whom they wanted to be president after the November election.
“I have your back and you have mine,” Mr Biden told the crowd. His speech was briefly disrupted for the second day in a row when a small number of protesters against Israel’s war in Gaza started chanting, before being dragged from the room by security guards.
Around a dozen pro-Palestinian supporters chanting slogans accusing Mr Biden of “genocide” also rallied outside the conference, a day after protesters repeatedly disrupted his speech on the key issue of abortion.
The UAW called for a ceasefire in Gaza in December, becoming the largest US union to do so and putting it at odds with Mr Biden, who has backed Israel since the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
The union’s endorsement came at a significant moment as Mr Biden’s campaign focuses on a rematch with Mr Trump, after the former president all but secured the Republican nomination in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.
Mr Biden and Mr Trump made duelling visits to Michigan, a historic car-producing state that is set to be a key battleground in the election, in the space of a few frantic days in September. Winning over working-class voters was key to Mr Trump’s shock election win in 2016 and to Mr Biden’s in 2020.
A megaphone-wielding Mr Biden became the first sitting US president in history to visit a picket line when he appeared in Michigan in support of striking workers.
A long-term union supporter, the Democrat repeatedly pushed carmakers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis to offer unions a fair deal and end the strike.
The President in November lashed out at Mr Trump for visiting only non-union workers during his trip to Michigan last year.
AFP
Israel and Hamas close to ceasefire deal
Israel and Hamas are close to securing a deal to halt the fighting in Gaza and return the hostages, as outgoing US President Joe Biden declared ‘we’re at the brink of a proposal’.
Trump would have been convicted if he wasn’t elected: special counsel report
Donald Trump would have been convicted for his alleged effort to overturn the result of the 2020 election if he hadn’t been elected four years later, said a report published on Tuesday.