Biden released pro-labor Trump attack ad during Panthers game in Charlotte
The Biden campaign released an ad on manufacturing and labor in Charlotte on Thursday evening to coincide with President Joe Biden’s visit to the Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois, which has faced turmoil in the past months following layoffs at the plant by the Jeep automaker Stellantis.
The ad, which aired in the Charlotte market during the Carolina Panthers vs. Chicago Bears game, starts by featuring former President Donald Trump, Biden’s potential 2024 opponent, playing golf.
“Auto industry employment fell under Trump’s watch,” say the words on screen, followed by videos of Biden meeting with manufacturing workers, hosting rallies and more.
“Joe Biden’s laws, increasing wages, creating good-paying jobs,” says the ad. “Manufacturing is coming back to America,” it continues, with audio further touting Biden’s record and slamming Trump.
The ad and recent actions by both presidential hopefuls point to the importance middle-class, blue-collar workers will have in 2024. Throughout his political career, Biden has sought to present himself as a champion of the middle class, including during his challenge of Trump in 2020. Most recently, during strikes by the United Auto Workers, Biden walked the picket line in Michigan. This is believed to be the first time an American president has done so, in support of the striking workers.
Trump, who has also sought to appeal to the middle class, spoke in late September, also in Michigan, at a nonunion auto parts company. There Trump pinned the auto industry’s problems on foreign trade deals, NBC News reported. He also pushed back against Biden’s pro-union champion claims.
The game airs on Amazon Prime and locally on WSOC. The ad will air on the TV broadcast of the game and on local and cable news, according to the Biden campaign. It will also air in the Chicago market and the Rockford, Illinois, market, where Belvidere is located, on evening local news and cable news.
UAW has tentative deals with the Big Three automakers. Stellantis, in late October, struck a deal with the union to raise wages, reopen and expand its operations. This followed the layoffs of over 1,000 employees in February, when the company idled its operations there, as reported by multiple news outlets. On Thursday, Biden is set to meet with UAW President Shawn Fain to tout the reopening of this shuttered plant.
“Donald Trump will lie and say he supports unions and American autoworkers, but the reality is he doesn’t care about working people. He sees the world from Park Avenue, not an assembly plant floor, and his record reflects it,” said Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, in an emailed statement.
President Biden is “focused on rebuilding the economy from the bottom up and middle out because he knows it’s the middle class and unions who built this country — not the ultra-wealthy and corporations,” said Chavez Rodriguez.
The UAW “Stand Up Strike,” which encompasses the Stellantis, General Motors and Ford strikes, is “a new approach to striking” where instead of striking all plants at once, select locals “stand up,” according to the UAW website. It follows rapid industry changes, in which the union says “workers are being left behind.” The UAW has not yet endorsed either candidate.
This story was originally published November 9, 2023 at 1:30 PM.
