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3:38 p.m. ET, September 26, 2023

Biden joined a picket line in Michigan. This was his key message and other takeaways to know


From CNN’s Kevin Liptak



U.S. President Joe Biden joined striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) on the picket line today outside the GM’s Willow Run Distribution Center, in Bellville, Wayne County, Michigan.

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

When President Joe Biden joined a picket line of autoworkers in Michigan on Tuesday, the historic moment offered a preview of next year’s election and underscored the president’s longtime commitment to a worker-centric economy.

Biden was visiting a day ahead of the 2024 Republican frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, who is hoping to cut into Biden’s support among blue-collar voters.

Wearing a UAW ball cap and speaking through a bullhorn, Biden’s overt support for the striking workers was a break from his predecessors’ attempts at neutrality. It offered the most explicit example yet of his bottom-up economic message — one focused on workers and not corporations.

Biden was the first sitting president to walk a picket line, at least in many presidential historians’ recollections. The White House sought to play up the fact, framing it as history in the making.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

A political battleground: For the first time this campaign season, Biden and Trump are competing directly for the same voters, each trying to appeal to union workers on the picket lines in Michigan.

“You deserve a significant raise,” Biden told picketers through a megaphone. “We saved them, it’s about time they step up for us.”

The dueling visits underscore one similarity in otherwise widely divergent political identities: staking out a claim as a champion for the working class. The powerful voting bloc could help decide next year’s election. Biden won Michigan narrowly in 2020, and Trump took the state in 2016.

Biden walks a fine line: Biden bills himself the “most pro-union president in history,” but he is still toeing a line when it comes to his support for the autoworkers.

Until Tuesday, he had not voiced explicit support for the union’s demands on major wage increases — though he has said record profits should translate to record contracts.

When a reporter asked Tuesday whether auto workers deserved a 40% pay raise — as they have demanded — workers standing around the president shouted yes. Biden also responded, “Yes.”

But the White House has reiterated that the administration is not involved in negotiations. Biden has maintained contact with auto executives, including in a phone call in the days before the strike began.

Seeking an endorsement: The UAW has withheld its endorsement so far, expressing concern about some of the ramifications of Biden’s efforts to transition the US auto fleet to electric vehicles.

Given the union’s current contract negotiations, it is perhaps unsurprising the UAW is holding off endorsing any candidate, hoping to extract the most robust support it can.

Speaking at the picket line on Tuesday, UAW President Shawn Fain praised Biden for being the first president to join a picket line. And he spoke out harshly against corporate executives.

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