WARREN, Michigan — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) made a direct plea to Trump supporters on Saturday as he rallied auto workers in Michigan, asking them to consider his record as president before casting their vote.
Sanders delivered his remarks to a crowd of United Auto Workers in Warren, the first of four stops he will make through Michigan on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris.
He spent the majority of his remarks railing against “corporate greed” and the widening wealth gap he often discusses at campaign events. But Sanders also tailored his comments to those labor workers unsure of whether to support Harris on Nov. 5.
“It’s no secret, there are union members — I don’t know why, I don’t know how — but there are union members around this country who are thinking about voting for Donald Trump,” Sanders said.
Sanders reminded the audience that Harris walked the UAW picket line in 2019 as a senator. Trump, he said, had a poor record that protected corporate interests at the expense of the working class.
“You had a president of the United States, his name — Donald Trump — did nothing for you,” Sanders said.
The rank-and-file membership of the UAW is deeply split over the presidential race, with anxiety over the transition to electric vehicles fueling questions over whether Harris can win Michigan, home to the most auto jobs of any state.
Trump has made the issue central to his election pitch; he calls the Biden administration’s EV policies a job-killer and promises to restore Michigan’s auto sector.
The event, hosted by the UAW and attended by its president, Shawn Fain, represents an attempt to counter those lines of attack.
Fain focused on Trump’s record in office, too. He pointed to a trade agreement Trump negotiated that he likened to NAFTA.
Sanders, for his part, accused Trump of appointing officials and judges hostile to the labor movement.
“You know, we’ve seen this body of work before. We’ve seen what he did when he was president,” Fain said before introducing Sanders to the stage. “He didn’t bring s*** back.”
Still, union leadership faces skepticism from some of its members over whether they can protect jobs if the industry transitions away from gas-powered cars. The Biden administration has not mandated electric vehicles, but its regulations have sped up the transition in the name of competing with China.
The Trump campaign mocked Sanders in a statement released before the event, claiming he has a “death wish for Michigan’s auto industry.” Trump spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita called Fain a “political puppet” who does not represent the average UAW member.
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“Can you name a more unrelatable trio to Michiganders than Bernie Sanders, Shawn Fain, and Kamala Harris?” she said.
Sanders will hold the second leg of his tour through Michigan in Saginaw on Saturday. The next day, he will campaign in Grand Rapids and East Lansing.
