Biden criticizes Trump in address to IBEW labor conference for not taking action

President Joe Biden took a number of shots at his opponent in the 2024 general election, former President Donald Trump, during his Friday speech at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ Construction and Maintenance Conference.

Biden and Trump are chasing union endorsements ahead of the general election in 2024, with both men relying on support from blue-collar workers in battlegrounds to secure their respective presidential victories. IBEW endorsed Biden in 2020 and again in 2023, just after he announced his reelection bid.

On Friday, the president said he added “tens of thousands” of good-paying union jobs to the economy over the past four years while simultaneously claiming Trump “never lifted a finger” to help labor groups while in office.

“Matter of fact, he lifted a finger to put a thumb on it,” he said. “Not only that, he put union busters on the National Labor Relations Board. The people I’ve appointed to the National Labor Relations Board actually care about American workers.”

Biden continued to attack Trump and Republicans for opposing his efforts to extend student loan debt relief to millions of people and rewrite the Trump-era tax cuts before closing with a summary of his and Trump’s differing views on the economy.

“My opponent learned the best way to get rich is inheriting. I can’t argue much with that, but they learned that paying taxes is for working people, not the super-wealthy. They learned that telling people, ‘You’re fired,’ is something to be laughed about. Not where I come from. Not where I was raised. I guess that’s how they look at the world from Park Avenue and Mar-a-Lago,” the president said.

“But I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware. Working-class, middle-class towns, like many of you did as well. Nobody handed you anything. You paid your taxes, and being told you were fired wasn’t entertainment. It was a devastating nightmare to a family,” Biden said.

“I see through the eyes of working people like you and the basic values that you represent: honesty, decency, hard work, faith,” he said. “It matters. Fairness matters. And if you believe like I do, everyone in America deserves just an even shot, no guarantees, just a shot, but guaranteed to have a shot. In America, we leave nobody behind where we come from.”

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You can watch Biden’s remarks in full below.