President Joe Biden ignored instructions from aides and worked the room after giving a belated labor day speech to union leaders and m...
President Joe Biden ignored instructions from aides and worked the room after giving a belated labor day speech to union leaders and members Wednesday.
'Now, I'm supposed to stop and walk out of the room here,' Biden said as he wrapped up his speech, which had been projected on a teleprompter. 'I'm going to stop, and with your permission, I'm going to walk into the room because I want to say hello to all of you.'
Biden's move comes one day after Politico reported how the president will go rogue - by adding things to scripted speeches or taking questions when aides' suggest he avoid the press - so much that some officials won't watch his events in real-time.
'I know people who habitually don't watch it live for that reason,' one unnamed current official told the publication's West Wing Playbook.
Biden added some cringe to the labor event by talking about how intimately he knew unions.
'By the way, of course, I sleep with a NEA member every night,' Biden told the crowd gathered in the East Room. 'Same one. same one,' he added as attendees applauded.
President Joe Biden works the room after a labor union event Wednesday, after telling the crowd that he was 'supposed to walk out now'
'I'm going to stop, and with your permission, I'm going to walk into the room because I want to say hello to all of you,' Biden told a crowd of labor leaders and members gathered in the East Room
Biden walks through the crowd Wednesday after delivering a belated Labor Day speech about the importance of unions
As a teacher, first lady Jill Biden belongs to the National Education Association labor union. 'Jill had her first day of full time teaching yesterday - this year, back to school,' Biden also added.
Two days after the country marked labor day, Biden hosted labor leaders and members at the White House to double down on his commitment to unions, detailing some of the union-friendly components of the legislation he wants passed.
The president couldn't resist a knock at his predecessor, former President Donald Trump - repeating a dig he made about the ex-leader last week.
Biden talked about how the American bargain had always been if people work hard they can carve out a piece of the middle class.
'Instead some people started seeing the stock market and corporate profits and executive pay as the only measure of economic growth,' he said.
Biden made a cringey joke about his intimate knowledge of unions: 'By the way, of course, I sleep with a NEA member every night,' he said
First lady Jill Biden watches President Joe Biden land in Marine One Tuesday, after her first day of school
'By the way the stock market has gone up exponentially since I've been president,' he added. 'You haven't heard me say a word about it.'
Trump constantly boasted about a roaring stock market - while wage growth didn't keep up.
'I'm so tired of trickle-down,' Biden also complained. 'I ask, when has the middle class done better when the wealthy haven't done incredibly well? I can't think of a time. When the middle class is booming and moving, everybody does well.'
Biden argued the good thing to come out of this 'God-awful crisis regarding COVID' is that 'ordinary people' began thinking about essential workers - drug store clerks, grocery store workers, firefighters, the president used as examples.
President Joe Biden has several times knocked former President Donald Trump's tendency to boast about stock market gains
'And I think people went "whoa, whoa,"' Biden continued. 'And instead of, which is a good thing - banging pots and pans when people came back from rescuing other folks - I think they began to realize, this is part of the deal.'
Quoting his late father the president said, 'everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity.'
'And that is what the labor union is all about,' he said.
He argued that 'government should never be a barrier to workers organizing.'
'It's government's job to remove those barriers,' he said. 'But it's up to workers to make the choice to organize or not, whether to former a union or not. And we need to help them understand why that can be the right choice for them.'
'Workers who join unions gain power,' Biden added. 'In a simple word, a union means there is a democracy, democracy.'
Besides his cringe-worthy comment about Dr. Biden, the president leaned into the microphone at one point and, again, spoke in a whisper briefly during the speech.
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