President Joe Biden used a story about his great-grandfather and striking miners in 19th century Pennsylvania to say the Kamala Harris is the new champion of workers rights in a speech to trade union members on Labor Day.
The 81-year-old commander-in-chief constantly joked about his age as he campaigned for the first time with the vice president who replaced him on the Democratic ticket.
He referenced his long-ago relative who was the second Catholic elected in the Keystone State in 1906, and how he was accused of being a ‘Molly Maguire’.
Biden said members of the secret society of Irish immigrants who, in the 1840s, killed coal mine foremen if they were taking advantage of workers and dump their bodies on their family’s doorstep.
‘They accuse my great-grandfather of being a Molly where he wasn’t, but we’re so damn disappointed,’ Biden said before stating ‘that’s a joke.’
The duo debuted their campaign act in Pittsburgh, rallying union members in the critical battleground state.
The packed crowd – who was loud and raucous – had a rainbow of support: the unions represented on t-shirts worn in the crowd are the IBEW with green t-shirts, the Iron Workers (blue), the SEIU (purple) and the United Steelworkers (gray).’
And, in a sign the torch has truly passed, Biden spoke first, introducing his former running mate who is now the star attraction. The two even appeared in matching outfits: navy blue suits with a light blue dress shirt.
Biden, 81, praised her profusely – describing her as having the ‘backbone of a ramrod and the moral compass of a saint.’
He also called her a ‘true friend’ of labor and then he bragged about how many jobs his administration has created before laying into Trump.
‘Do you think this guy gives a damn about your pensions,’ he said to cheers from the crowd. ‘I’m serious. Do you think he loses even in an instant asleep over it? Or thinks he cares about all the work you do every day.’
And then he said of Trump and picket lines: ‘He’d rather cross one than walk one when I have no problem walking the picket line.’
The president concluded his remarks with a ringing endorsement of Harris saying ‘I know she’ll be a good president’ and declared she knows what she’s doing.
‘I promise you, if you elect Kamala Harris as president it will be the best decision you will have ever made,’ he told the crowd.
He held her hand as he spoke. When he was finished, they hugged. Biden kissed her on the forehead.
Harris was effusive in her praise of Biden. ‘Thank you Joe,’ she said when he introduced her.
She then launched into a tribute to the labor movement, saying ‘when unions are strong, America is strong.’
‘We fight for workers. We fight for families,’ she said to thunderous applause.
She also vowed to ‘always have the back of American steel workers’ and called for it to stay in American ownership, a push back against an effort by a Japanese company to buy it.
The mood was festive. Union workers were spotted carrying plastic cups of beer. There were sheet cakes on hand.
Ahead of their remarks, Harris and Biden held a small meet-and-greet with union workers and their families before addressing a larger crowd. There were a lot of smiles, hugs and selfies as Harris and Biden, who stuck close to one another, worked the room.
The date and sitting for their first campaign sighting together is significant: It’s being held on Labor Day in a must-win state.
But their trip is being overshadowed by the war in the Middle East.
Before leaving to campaign for the day, Harris joined Biden in the Situation Room to meet with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team to discuss the efforts to free the remaining hostages.
Israel said early Sunday that it had recovered the bodies of six hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. The deaths resulted in thousands protesting in the streets of Israel.
Harris has endorsed Biden’s efforts to arm Israel and bring about a hostage deal and ceasefire. She also has raised concerns about the treatment of civilians in Gaza.
She then headed to Detroit, where she spoke to union workers before traveling to Pennsylvania.
She spent the majority of her remarks praising unions and the work they do.
‘On Labor Day and every day we celebrate the dignity of work. We celebrate unions, because unions helped build America,’ she said.
She noted unions demanded fair pay, better benefits and safer working conditions.
‘Every person in our nation has benefited from that work. You may not be a union member but you better thank a union member,’ she said.
‘When unions are strong, America is strong.’
Both Michigan and Pennsylvania make up the Democrats’ ‘blue wall,’ a series of Midwest states considered a must win in order to keep the White House. Biden carried both states in the 2020 election but Donald Trump won them in the 2016 one.
The two were joined in Pittsburgh by Governor Josh Shapiro, who was in the running to be Harris’ running mate.
Harris and her campaign have been careful about where they are deploying Biden. The president stepped down from the ticket in July when Democrats became concerned he would lose to Trump and take them down with him.
But he can still be an effective surrogate among older voters, white men and in Pennsylvania, the state where he was born and considers a second home.
He’ll continue solo throughout the rest of the week: On Thursday, the president will be in Wisconsin (another ‘blue wall’ state) to tout his administration’s investment in communities there. On Friday, he will go to Michigan to do the same.
Biden and Harris appeared together on Aug. 15 in Largo, Maryland, at an event touting the administration’s work to lower prescription drug prices. But the visit was an official White House visit, not a campaign stop.
They were also on stage together after Biden spoke on the first day of the Democratic National Convention.
Labor Day is the traditional start of the fall campaign season, when millions of voters start tuning in to the race.
Harris and her surrogates are on a Labor Day blitz: Running mate Tim Walz and his wife Gwen Walz will be in Milwaukee, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will be in Newport News, Virginia.
With less than three months to go until the election, Harris campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon argues Harris and Walz are the ‘clear underdogs’ in the race.
‘Donald Trump has a motivated base of support, with more support and higher favorability than he has had at any point since 2020,’ she wrote in a campaign memo, adding ‘the race will remain incredibly close, and the voters who will decide this election will require an extraordinary amount of work to win over. But we have the candidate, message, and operation that brings Americans together to chart a new way forward, so we can once again defeat Donald Trump.’
Both parties are worried about complacency – that their voters will simply stay home on Election Day.
Labor unions are a key Democratic consistency and can help drive out voters. Biden was the first sitting president to join a picket line, when he walked with striking auto workers in Michigan.
Harris has the endorsement of the United Auto Workers union, which has a strong presence in Michigan, and the United Steelworkers, which dominates western Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh.
The largest union endorsement the Harris campaign lacks is Teamsters, which has so far held off from endorsing Harris or Trump.
The Harris campaign notes that under the administration, support for union membership has grown to its highest level in half a century.
The administration also extended overtime pay protections for workers and helped to create millions of union jobs through the bipartisan infrastructure bill and Inflation Reduction Act.
The Pittsburgh stop is Harris’ ninth trip to Pennsylvania this year, while the Detroit visit is her sixth to Michigan in 2024.
Polls in Michigan and Pennsylvania show Harris and Trump running in a dead heat.
Trump’s campaign had no publicly announced Labor Day weekend events.
The former president will participate in a FOX town hall on Wednesday hosted by Sean Hannity, and later this week will address the Fraternal Order of Police at their fall meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina and hold a rally in Wisconsin.