Pence blames Biden for UAW strike: ‘Mandates are crushing auto workers’

Former Vice President Mike Pence blamed President Joe Biden for the United Auto Workers strike.

“Bidenomics is a failure, wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, and [electric vehicle] mandates are crushing auto workers in places like Michigan. What’s putting those people on the picket line is Joe Biden trying to shut down their industry,” he said on Monday on WFEA radio in New Hampshire.

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Earlier this month, 13,000 UAW workers started a targeted strike of General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis in Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio.

Republican candidates quickly unified behind the message that Biden was to blame for the strike — pointing to his energy and economic policies.

Biden, who has called himself the most pro-union president in history, announced last week he will be visiting Michigan to meet with workers on strike.

“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 posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Friday evening.

The trip is set one day before former President Donald Trump visits the state to speak to former and current union members.

During a speech last week, UAW President Shawn Fain said, “We invite and encourage everyone who supports our cause to join us on the picket lines, from our friends and family all the way to the president of the United States.”

However, Fain was not supportive of Trump’s plan to visit, saying, “Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers.”

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“We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding of what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class,” he said in a statement.

Republicans are looking for how to balance the party’s anti-union history with the fact that the party’s base has shifted to become largely made up of noncollege-educated people. Trump’s speech this week marks the most significant step by any of the GOP candidates to get involved in the matter.