Biden to picket with UAW members Tuesday in Detroit

President Joe Biden will travel to Detroit, Michigan, on Tuesday to picket alongside striking United Auto Workers members.

The president’s travel comes on the heels of an invitation from UAW President Shawn Fain Friday morning to come to Detroit. Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and White House adviser Gene Sperling had planned to travel to Detroit earlier in the week before canceling their trip.

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Fain, shortly after announcing an expansion of UAW’s strike against the “Big Three” auto manufacturers, invited Biden and other “friends and family” of the union to join the picket line.

“Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create,” Biden tweeted Friday evening. “It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs.”

Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say if Biden would accept Fain’s invitation but said the administration had maintained contact with both sides throughout the negotiation process.

“The president appreciates Shawn Fain inviting him and calling him certainly with all the family and friends in the UAW,” she told reporters. “We are, of course, in touch with both parties, as you know, our acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su and also Gene Sperling have been in regular touch for the past several weeks with all parties.”

“Certainly, the parties have continued to remain at the negotiation table, which is incredibly important. And so we’ve communicated to each of them the importance of continuing to work 24/7 to get to a written agreement,” Jean-Pierre continued. “UAW workers remain at the heart of a booming industry, and so we will do anything, everything that we possibly can to help in any way that the parties would like us to.”

Former President Donald Trump‘s campaign criticized Biden’s decision to travel to Detroit as “nothing more than a cheap photo op as he finds himself between a rock and a political hard place.”

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“The only reason Biden is going to Michigan on Tuesday is because President Trump announced he is going on Wednesday. If President Trump had said nothing, Biden would be giving UAW workers in Michigan ‘the East Palestine treatment,'” senior Trump adviser Jason Miller wrote in a statement.

“Biden is still hell-bent on destroying all of the auto jobs he’s purporting to care about,” Miller added. “His visit on Tuesday is completely meaningless unless he withdraws his Insane EV Mandate and rebukes his Green New Deal, which Biden will never do because he’s beholden to the Radical Left Eco-Loons in California. Joe Biden cares more about his extremist liberal base than he does about auto workers in Michigan or anywhere else in the United States.”