Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during an event at the Redford Township Fire Department North Station in Michigan on Friday.
(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)
By Chris Megerian and Will Weissert
Oct. 4, 2024
REDFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. —
It was the perfect place to welcome the endorsement of the firefighters union — a gleaming new firehouse in a blue-collar town just outside of Detroit in the key battleground state of Michigan.
But by the time Vice President Kamala Harris showed up in Redford Township on Friday, there was no endorsement waiting for her.
By a slim margin, the International Assn. of Firefighters declined to back any candidate, a reminder of the Democratic nominee’s struggle to lock down the same support from organized labor that President Biden won four years ago. The Teamsters also balked at an endorsement last month.
Harris is still gaining more endorsements than she’s losing. National teachers unions, building trade unions, the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers backed the vice president shortly after Biden ended his run for a second term. And the leader of the Michigan firefighters union, Matthew Sahr, showed up for Harris in Redford Township — although not to bestow the endorsement.
“We could have chosen to stay away. But what kind of message would that send?” Sahr said.
A spokesman for the union declined Friday to comment beyond a previously released statement that said there would be no endorsement for Harris or her opponent, former President Trump.
“The vice president is proud to have the support of organized labor, including firefighters across key battlegrounds like those who joined her in Michigan Friday,” said Harris campaign spokesman Brian Fallon. “She is the only candidate in this race who always stands with workers and has fought to protect overtime pay, worker pensions, and the right to organize.”
What unfolded nonetheless reflects the shifting loyalties in American politics as Harris vies with Trump for support among working-class voters who for years could be more solidly counted on to support Democrats.
Still, Harris didn’t mince words when she spoke at the firehouse, saying Trump “has been a union-buster his entire career” and would launch a “full-on attack” against organized labor.
Harris said Trump supports “right-to-work” laws that often make it more difficult to unionize, and said he had weakened federal employees’ unions. While he was president, Trump used a series of 2018 executive orders designed to reduce those unions’ powers to collectively bargain.
He has expressed support for right-to-work since his initial run for president in 2016 — while also making comments more generally supportive of labor rights when speaking to union audiences since then.
Harris also accused the former president of “making the same empty promises to the people of Michigan that he did before, hoping you will forget how he let you down.”
Her remarks followed U.S. dockworkers suspending their strike in hopes of reaching a new contract, sparing the country a damaging episode of labor unrest that could have rattled the economy. A tentative agreement that has been hailed by Harris was reached to raise salaries, although other issues still need to be resolved.
The vice president later addressed an evening rally in Flint. She spoke after basketball legend Magic Johnson, who said “nobody is going to outwork her,” and UAW President Shawn Fain, who described Trump as “a scab.”
Harris said that, unlike what Trump says about the Biden administration’s rules on electric vehicles, “I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.”
“But here’s what I will do, I will invest in communities like Flint,” she said.
Harris also criticized Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, after Vance, while campaigning in Michigan on Wednesday, refused to commit to continue federal support going to a GM plant in Lansing, Michigan’s state capital.
“Donald Trump’s running mate suggested that if Trump wins, he might let the Grand River Assembly Plant in Lansing close down,” Harris said as the crowd booed.
She said that, by contrast, the Biden administration had fought to keep the plant open, adding, “Michigan, we, together, fought hard for those jobs and you deserve a president who won’t put them at risk.”
Questions remain, though, about whether Harris can cement backing from most rank-and-file union members.
Justin Pomerville, the business manager at UA Local 85 in Michigan, said 70% of his members’ work hours are tied to the CHIPS and Science Act, which the Biden administration championed, pumping billions of dollars into semiconductor manufacturing.
The workers lay complex networks of pipes that carry exhaust, water and chemicals through high-tech facilities. However, Pomerville said some members aren’t aware of the connection between their jobs and the legislation.
“Unless someone tells them they’re working because of that, they don’t know,” he said.
The Democrats, meanwhile, have increased their support among white-collar professionals while Republicans try to make inroads among voters who didn’t attend college.
During a rally in Saginaw, Mich., on Thursday, Trump said Republicans are now “the party of the American worker,” glossing over his anti-union record as president.
The former president also made a trip to Flint last month in an event billed as focusing on the auto industry, a pillar of the battleground state. The two candidates have been in the same cities — and in some cases the exact same venues — within days or weeks of each other.
Trump spent Friday in Georgia with Gov. Brian Kemp, the latest sign that he’s patched up his rocky relationship with the top Republican in a key battleground state. The former president and the governor appeared in Evans, Ga., standing before pallets of goods including bottled water, diapers and paper towels.
“I have no doubt that whatever can be done is going to be done,” Trump said. “It’s a lot of effort. It’s a very heartbreaking situation.”
Later Friday, he held a town hall in Fayetteville in another storm-ravaged state, North Carolina. Speaking to an audience composed largely of people with military connections, he pledged to change the name of nearby Ft. Liberty back to its prior name, Ft. Bragg. The base, one of the U.S. military’s largest, was rechristened in 2022 in a push to rename military installations named for Confederate service members.
Trump repeated his promise to fire “woke generals,” blasted the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and said he’d make it easier for veterans to seek medical care outside the Veterans Administration healthcare system.
One man, introduced as a Vietnam War veteran named Dwight, gave Trump the Purple Heart he was awarded for injuries sustained while serving. He referenced the bullet that grazed Trump’s ear during a rally in Pennsylvania and Trump’s response.
“I couldn’t think of anybody more deserving to have a Purple Heart,” Dwight said to Trump. “You took it, you laid down there, you got back up and the first words out of your mouth were ‘fight, fight, fight.’ You didn’t even have anything to shoot back at him.”
Trump got a series of deferments to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, including one obtained with a physician’s letter saying he had bone spurs in his feet. In the 1990s, he said trying to avoid sexually transmitted infections was “my personal Vietnam.”
Megerian and Weissert write for the Associated Press. Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Fayetteville, N.C., and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.
REDFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. —
It was the perfect place to welcome the endorsement of the firefighters union — a gleaming new firehouse in a blue-collar town just outside of Detroit in the key battleground state of Michigan.
But by the time Vice President Kamala Harris showed up in Redford Township on Friday, there was no endorsement waiting for her.
By a slim margin, the International Assn. of Firefighters declined to back any candidate, a reminder of the Democratic nominee’s struggle to lock down the same support from organized labor that President Biden won four years ago. The Teamsters also balked at an endorsement last month.
Harris is still gaining more endorsements than she’s losing. National teachers unions, building trade unions, the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers backed the vice president shortly after Biden ended his run for a second term. And the leader of the Michigan firefighters union, Matthew Sahr, showed up for Harris in Redford Township — although not to bestow the endorsement.
“We could have chosen to stay away. But what kind of message would that send?” Sahr said.
A spokesman for the union declined Friday to comment beyond a previously released statement that said there would be no endorsement for Harris or her opponent, former President Trump.
“The vice president is proud to have the support of organized labor, including firefighters across key battlegrounds like those who joined her in Michigan Friday,” said Harris campaign spokesman Brian Fallon. “She is the only candidate in this race who always stands with workers and has fought to protect overtime pay, worker pensions, and the right to organize.”
What unfolded nonetheless reflects the shifting loyalties in American politics as Harris vies with Trump for support among working-class voters who for years could be more solidly counted on to support Democrats.
Still, Harris didn’t mince words when she spoke at the firehouse, saying Trump “has been a union-buster his entire career” and would launch a “full-on attack” against organized labor.
Harris said Trump supports “right-to-work” laws that often make it more difficult to unionize, and said he had weakened federal employees’ unions. While he was president, Trump used a series of 2018 executive orders designed to reduce those unions’ powers to collectively bargain.
He has expressed support for right-to-work since his initial run for president in 2016 — while also making comments more generally supportive of labor rights when speaking to union audiences since then.
Harris also accused the former president of “making the same empty promises to the people of Michigan that he did before, hoping you will forget how he let you down.”
Her remarks followed U.S. dockworkers suspending their strike in hopes of reaching a new contract, sparing the country a damaging episode of labor unrest that could have rattled the economy. A tentative agreement that has been hailed by Harris was reached to raise salaries, although other issues still need to be resolved.
The vice president later addressed an evening rally in Flint. She spoke after basketball legend Magic Johnson, who said “nobody is going to outwork her,” and UAW President Shawn Fain, who described Trump as “a scab.”
Harris said that, unlike what Trump says about the Biden administration’s rules on electric vehicles, “I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.”
“But here’s what I will do, I will invest in communities like Flint,” she said.
Harris also criticized Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, after Vance, while campaigning in Michigan on Wednesday, refused to commit to continue federal support going to a GM plant in Lansing, Michigan’s state capital.
“Donald Trump’s running mate suggested that if Trump wins, he might let the Grand River Assembly Plant in Lansing close down,” Harris said as the crowd booed.
She said that, by contrast, the Biden administration had fought to keep the plant open, adding, “Michigan, we, together, fought hard for those jobs and you deserve a president who won’t put them at risk.”
Questions remain, though, about whether Harris can cement backing from most rank-and-file union members.
Justin Pomerville, the business manager at UA Local 85 in Michigan, said 70% of his members’ work hours are tied to the CHIPS and Science Act, which the Biden administration championed, pumping billions of dollars into semiconductor manufacturing.
The workers lay complex networks of pipes that carry exhaust, water and chemicals through high-tech facilities. However, Pomerville said some members aren’t aware of the connection between their jobs and the legislation.
“Unless someone tells them they’re working because of that, they don’t know,” he said.
The Democrats, meanwhile, have increased their support among white-collar professionals while Republicans try to make inroads among voters who didn’t attend college.
During a rally in Saginaw, Mich., on Thursday, Trump said Republicans are now “the party of the American worker,” glossing over his anti-union record as president.
The former president also made a trip to Flint last month in an event billed as focusing on the auto industry, a pillar of the battleground state. The two candidates have been in the same cities — and in some cases the exact same venues — within days or weeks of each other.
Trump spent Friday in Georgia with Gov. Brian Kemp, the latest sign that he’s patched up his rocky relationship with the top Republican in a key battleground state. The former president and the governor appeared in Evans, Ga., standing before pallets of goods including bottled water, diapers and paper towels.
“I have no doubt that whatever can be done is going to be done,” Trump said. “It’s a lot of effort. It’s a very heartbreaking situation.”
Later Friday, he held a town hall in Fayetteville in another storm-ravaged state, North Carolina. Speaking to an audience composed largely of people with military connections, he pledged to change the name of nearby Ft. Liberty back to its prior name, Ft. Bragg. The base, one of the U.S. military’s largest, was rechristened in 2022 in a push to rename military installations named for Confederate service members.
Trump repeated his promise to fire “woke generals,” blasted the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and said he’d make it easier for veterans to seek medical care outside the Veterans Administration healthcare system.
One man, introduced as a Vietnam War veteran named Dwight, gave Trump the Purple Heart he was awarded for injuries sustained while serving. He referenced the bullet that grazed Trump’s ear during a rally in Pennsylvania and Trump’s response.
“I couldn’t think of anybody more deserving to have a Purple Heart,” Dwight said to Trump. “You took it, you laid down there, you got back up and the first words out of your mouth were ‘fight, fight, fight.’ You didn’t even have anything to shoot back at him.”
Trump got a series of deferments to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, including one obtained with a physician’s letter saying he had bone spurs in his feet. In the 1990s, he said trying to avoid sexually transmitted infections was “my personal Vietnam.”
Megerian and Weissert write for the Associated Press. Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Fayetteville, N.C., and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.
Trump jokes about dead firefighter’s widow in leaked recording after Butler rally tragedy: ‘I handed her…’
ByAditi Srivastava
Oct 05, 2024
In leaked audio, Donald Trump made a distasteful joke about Corey Comperatore and her widow at a high-profile dinner.
Donald Trump was heard making a controversial joke about the widow of firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was killed during a shooting at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally in an alleged leaked audio recording. The Guardian reported, how the Republican nominee recounted his conversation with Comperatore’s wife during a private dinner on August 10 in Aspen, where he handed her a monetary gift.
ByAditi Srivastava
Oct 05, 2024
In leaked audio, Donald Trump made a distasteful joke about Corey Comperatore and her widow at a high-profile dinner.
Donald Trump was heard making a controversial joke about the widow of firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was killed during a shooting at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally in an alleged leaked audio recording. The Guardian reported, how the Republican nominee recounted his conversation with Comperatore’s wife during a private dinner on August 10 in Aspen, where he handed her a monetary gift.
Trump showed the audience what he claimed to be a million-dollar cheque for Comperatore's family as well as for the two victims who were seriously injured in the incident.(X)
He then went on to make an inappropriate remark about the situation. The dinner, which featured several high-profile attendees, has drawn backlash.
Trump jokes about Corey Comperatore and his wife
On July 13, Donald Trump was addressing a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when he became the target of a failed assassination attempt, which was aborted at the last minute by the Secret Service.
While the former president was unharmed, the rally tragically saw the loss of a brave firefighter who was shot dead after diving to protect his family as Thomas Crooks opened fire. The 12 min recording obtained by The Guardian was from a dinner held at the $38 million home of art collectors and investors John and Amy Phelan on August 10 in Aspen, Colorado.
“So they’re going to get millions of dollars but the woman, the wife, this beautiful woman, I handed her the check—we handed her the check,” the Republican party candidate said recalling his meeting with Helen Comperatore. “and she said, ‘This is so nice, and I appreciate it, but I’d much rather have my husband.’ Now I know some of the women in this room wouldn’t say the same.
He quipped "I know at least four couples. There are four couples, Governor [Abbott], that I know and you’re not one of them. At least four couples here would have been thrilled, actually.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Steve Wynn, and billionaire Thomas Peterffy were among the guests at the event, which required couples to contribute $500,000 to join the host committee or at least $25,000 to attend.
Trump ranted about migrants
During the dinner attended by approximately 100 guests, with Trump arriving in his private jet at the venue previously owned by Jeffrey Epstein, The Guardian reported that the former president unleashed a profanity-laden tirade against undocumented migrants, a topic he never forgets to bring up, especially in the days leading up to the November presidential election.
Also read: Male A-lister in Diddy Sex tape ‘horrified’ by leak in media: ‘If this footage gets out…’
He criticised certain politically savvy leaders for allegedly planning the entry of convicted criminals into the U.S. to undermine the country. Trump also recounted an alleged false incident involving over 20 individuals who traveled to the U.S. after being released from prison in a Central African nation.
“We said, ‘Where do you come from?’ They said, ‘Prison.’ ‘What did you do?’ ‘None of your f---ing business what we did,’” he reportedly narrated an exchange between an alleged migrant and an unnamed official. “You know why? Because they’re murderers.”
In the recording, Trump appeared to acknowledge that he may have gone too far with his language, stating, “I hate to use that foul language.” He then characterized the individuals entering the U.S. as tough, mentioning they were coming from various regions, including Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, suggesting they were worse than American criminals.
He then went on to make an inappropriate remark about the situation. The dinner, which featured several high-profile attendees, has drawn backlash.
Trump jokes about Corey Comperatore and his wife
On July 13, Donald Trump was addressing a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when he became the target of a failed assassination attempt, which was aborted at the last minute by the Secret Service.
While the former president was unharmed, the rally tragically saw the loss of a brave firefighter who was shot dead after diving to protect his family as Thomas Crooks opened fire. The 12 min recording obtained by The Guardian was from a dinner held at the $38 million home of art collectors and investors John and Amy Phelan on August 10 in Aspen, Colorado.
“So they’re going to get millions of dollars but the woman, the wife, this beautiful woman, I handed her the check—we handed her the check,” the Republican party candidate said recalling his meeting with Helen Comperatore. “and she said, ‘This is so nice, and I appreciate it, but I’d much rather have my husband.’ Now I know some of the women in this room wouldn’t say the same.
He quipped "I know at least four couples. There are four couples, Governor [Abbott], that I know and you’re not one of them. At least four couples here would have been thrilled, actually.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Steve Wynn, and billionaire Thomas Peterffy were among the guests at the event, which required couples to contribute $500,000 to join the host committee or at least $25,000 to attend.
Trump ranted about migrants
During the dinner attended by approximately 100 guests, with Trump arriving in his private jet at the venue previously owned by Jeffrey Epstein, The Guardian reported that the former president unleashed a profanity-laden tirade against undocumented migrants, a topic he never forgets to bring up, especially in the days leading up to the November presidential election.
Also read: Male A-lister in Diddy Sex tape ‘horrified’ by leak in media: ‘If this footage gets out…’
He criticised certain politically savvy leaders for allegedly planning the entry of convicted criminals into the U.S. to undermine the country. Trump also recounted an alleged false incident involving over 20 individuals who traveled to the U.S. after being released from prison in a Central African nation.
“We said, ‘Where do you come from?’ They said, ‘Prison.’ ‘What did you do?’ ‘None of your f---ing business what we did,’” he reportedly narrated an exchange between an alleged migrant and an unnamed official. “You know why? Because they’re murderers.”
In the recording, Trump appeared to acknowledge that he may have gone too far with his language, stating, “I hate to use that foul language.” He then characterized the individuals entering the U.S. as tough, mentioning they were coming from various regions, including Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, suggesting they were worse than American criminals.
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