Donald Trump will be skipping the second Republican primary presidential debate,
which will be taking place next week.
And that's according to two of his advisors,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity to The Washington Post.
But this time, rather than doing a super cheesy interview with Tucker Carlson,
he's actually deciding to do something that I think is far smarter,
especially from a campaigning standpoint.
He is going to speak to hundreds of auto workers, plumbers, electricians,
pipe fitters in Detroit on the night of the debate.
Now, do I think that Trump genuinely cares about workers?
Obviously, I don't, and I'll explain why in a moment.
But politically, this is so incredibly smart.
So the group is very likely to include striking United Auto Workers,
assuming the strike is still going on by next week.
And based on what I'm seeing from the union leader,
it's likely to continue into next week.
One advisor said that it's unclear whether or
not Trump will actually visit the picket line, though.
And while that would make for great optics,
it is hard to imagine Donald Trump showing up to a picket line.
But we'll see.
We'll see if that happens.
Now, The Washington Post also reports that Trump has created a new radio ad
meant to run in the Detroit area.
The point of that ad is to appeal to the auto workers
on strike without getting too supportive toward labor.
And so according to The Washington Post,
all they've ever wanted is to completely, fairly, I'm sorry,
to compete fairly worldwide and get their fair share of the American dream,
a narrator says in that ad, which does not explicitly mention the strike.
Donald Trump calls them great Americans and has always had their backs.
>> Speaker 2: Has he? >> Has he?
>> That was funny.
>> Speaker 2: I know. >> Speaker 1: [INAUDIBLE] Said it at
the same time.
>> Now if you know Donald Trump at all,
he likes to lean into the economic populist rhetoric.
But then you take a look at his track record, you take a look at his actions,
including massive corporate tax cuts, honestly,
a trade war that was not really well planned, just completely unstrategic.
It led to a lot of pain for farmers in the middle of the country.
I mean, it's just hard to believe that he actually genuinely cares about
these workers because his actions show otherwise.
In fact, Trump was much more critical of the UAW and their strike just last week.
So I wanna show you that video.
This was during a conversation on Meet the Press.
Let's watch.
>> Speaker 1: My question for you, Mr President, whose side are you on in this?
>> Speaker 3: I'm on the side of making our country great.
The auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership, and
their leadership should endorse Trump.
The reason is you gotta have choice, like in school.
I want school choice.
I also want choice for cars.
If somebody wants gasoline, if somebody wants all electric,
they can do whatever they want, but they're destroying the consumer and
they're destroying the auto workers.
The auto workers will not have any jobs, Kristen,
because all of these cars are gonna be made in China.
>> Speaker 1: That was a little incoherent.
Maybe there was a concise clear message there that I missed, Cenk.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, no, there wasn't.
Okay, so let me break it down, though.
Whose side are you?
I'm on the side of making America great again.
>> Speaker 1: He's on the side of Trump.
>> Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, no, no, I'm gonna get to that.
But that first part of the answer is deeply political.
I mean, MAGA likes him for
being authentic, and he doesn't give slimy answers.
That was a slimy answer.
>> Speaker 1: Super slimy.
>> Speaker 2: Which side are you on?
It's not a complicated question, right?
Are the workers getting paid too little or too much, right?
Well, I'm on the side of America.
Okay, so you're a slime ball.
Okay, then he says, well,
the important thing is that the union leaders are going in the wrong direction.
They should back me.
So the strike is all about you.
It's not about those average American worker and how much they should make and
how they should provide for their family.
No, it's about me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
And at the end, now, don't be angry at the corporate guys that I gave a giant tax cut
to, and I'm promising to give another giant one to.
Your real anger should be focused at China.
So he played all the hits there, and MAGA will probably like it.
They'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
This strike should be about Trump.
I hate the Chinese.
The Chinese?
What are we talking about here?
It's UAW versus GM and Ford.
>> Right.
>> Speaker 2: So, look, this is not a hard question, but the fact that
the Democrats are seeding any ground here- >> Yes!
>> Is a disaster, okay?
>> Such a good point, yep.
>> Speaker 2: And so if you say, hey, wait, Cenk, that's not fair.
The guy who's the most pro-union and most average worker friendly politician in
the country is obvious the guy we saw in the pictures.
Not this picture.
The ones we were showing earlier, Bernie Sanders.
When you see Bernie Sanders at that rally in the pictures we showed earlier,
everybody goes, yeah, that makes sense, right?
That's why Bernie would have beat Trump by 12 points in 2016.
That's what the polling indicated.
People wanted someone like Bernie who's gonna stick up for the average guy and
be authentic.
So anyways, but when you look at the corporate Democrats,
they've lost touch completely.
But are they still better than Trump when it comes to unions and labor?
100 times better.
To be fair to Joe Biden, he's pretty good with labor.
We've given you his record many times, 50-50.
But, guys, politics is about optics.
>> Speaker 1: Yes.
>> Speaker 2: And so if Biden looks detached and he can't make up his mind and
his answers have been noncommittal, right?
I mean, he talks about the worker and we gotta take the, but
he doesn't give details about how the workers need to be paid more and
how management is too greedy or anything like that.
He just leaves it a softball flowery political talk that gives you a sense of,
well, both sides are okay.
>> Speaker 1: Well, it is a problem, right?
Because his messaging on it, I admit, and the optics are not good.
So I'll give you a specific example.
I've given it before, but
I have to say it again cuz it's a perfect example of what Cenk is talking about.
Joe Biden steps in to prevent the rail workers from going on strike.
He calls on Congress to squash it.
Now, the rail workers were asking for something incredibly reasonable.
Hey, can we just get some paid time off in case we have a medical emergency or
a family emergency, please?
And Biden steps in.
At first, he tries to get the workers to accept
a union contract that they did not want, and they rejected it, right?
Then he gets Congress to squash their ability to even go on strike.
But, and this is a really important part that he has not marketed,
he has not messaged about, he has not talked about.
Behind the scenes while, yes, he stopped the strike from happening,
he helped negotiate and secure the paid time off that the workers wanted.
But most people don't know that.
They don't know that because he's approximately 180 years old and
doesn't know how to speak clear, or he does know how to speak clearly, but
he just has difficulty with it, right?
So he's not good with messaging, and he gets none of the credit.
In the meantime, you have this boisterous,
kind of funny guy come out and, I care about the workers.
He says vague things, a lot of bravado.
But unfortunately, we live in the United States of America where bravado sells.
And that's frustrating, but it's the truth.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, there's one thing that Trump could be screwing up.
I'll get to that in a sec.
But when you look at the optics of Trump, he's going to, on the debate night,
go to talk to average American workers who are on strike.
The optics of that is beautiful.
And Biden, what are you doing?
Get up off your ass.
You should have beat him to that punch.
>> Speaker 1: Totally.
>> Speaker 2: The fact that he's out flanking you on that.
Biden's policies are way better than Trump's.
It's not even close.
Trump said we shouldn't even have a minimum wage.
He's for lower wages, and he wants to cut corporate taxes to 15%.
That's his big promise in his campaign now.
It's not to you guys, it's to the bosses.
But why doesn't Biden take credit for
the good work he did behind the scenes in the railway strike as he got punished for
having the anti-worker position in front of the scenes?
Well, there's two possibilities.
One is the one that Ana mentioned, that he's 180 and
doesn't realize that politics is about marketing, and he's like,
they'll find out I'm classy and did things, good things, behind the scenes.
No, they won't.
>> Speaker 1: No, they won't. >> Speaker 2: That's the very nature
of being behind the scenes, right?
So the second possibility is he's not mentioning it publicly cuz he doesn't
wanna scare off his donors.
>> Speaker 1: No, there's definitely, in my opinion, truth to that.
So it could be both things, a combination of both things.
But either way, it's gonna hurt him politically.
Because if you look at the polling, for instance, Gallup,
Gallup found that 75% of Americans side with UAW members compared to
just 19% who side with the auto companies.
But listen, what I'm interested in is how the actual workers feel about both sides.
And we've got a video to give you a sense of that.
Let's watch.
>> Speaker 1: It would be nice if they were actually out here doing it for
real instead of just for votes.
>> Speaker 2: Who are you thinking about when you say that?
>> Speaker 1: Trump.
>> Speaker 2: You think he's just doing this for the campaign?
>> Speaker 1: He didn't support us before, back when he was president,
and neither did Biden.
Biden's the one with electrification and
basically forcing the big three to go electrified.
So I think it's just for votes.
>> Speaker 2: The push for electric vehicles,
that makes you critical of the president?
>> Speaker 1: Yes, it does.
>> Speaker 1: She's not the only one who feels this way.
So clearly, lots of critique, lots of criticism for both sides.
The New York Times interviewed striking UAW workers over the weekend, and here's
what Beverly Brown, a strike captain for workers in Ohio, told The Times.
Brown voted for Biden, but said that when it came to backing working people, quote,
I don't think he's doing enough, end quote.
Neither did she view Trump as an ally of working people, saying,
everything he's done up until now proves otherwise.
He's for the rich.
And that was a common theme among the workers who were interviewed by The Times
for this piece.
So that's the reality of the situation.
So the workers themselves, because the policies impact them, so
they know firsthand whether or
not these politicians actually mean what they're saying on the campaign trail.
But when it comes to political campaigning and when it comes to optics,
I think Trump is just far above the rest in understanding what appeals to people,
even if his actions don't go along with his words.
>> Speaker 2: Okay, so I like being productive, and
I'm gonna make suggestions on what Biden should do.
But first I wanna say, look, I like the push for electric cars,
but that doesn't mean you should ignore the feelings of those workers.
You have to take them into account.
It doesn't mean you change policy, but
it means do not shield yourself from the truth because you find it uncomfortable.
A lot of those workers do feel that way.
You should figure out how to address that, right?
And don't let it fester.
Okay, now onto what I would do if I was in the Biden White House, first thing I would
say is, President Biden, do you remember your great line from when you ran for
president, or I'm sorry, when you were re-campaigning for vice president in 2012?
You used to go around saying, we killed bin Laden and saved GM and Ford, right?
And so you saved these guys' jobs before.
I don't know if you know this, but you're running for president now, and
you won't let any other Democrat run.
So can you please go out and make the case that you already saved their jobs once and
you're gonna save them again?
This is not at all hard.
It's literally what you have done in the past, okay?
The second thing I would tell them is I would have a giant cardboard thing,
and on the one side, it would say 75%, and on the other side it would say 19%.
And I wouldn't ask him cuz I don't wanna insult him, but
I'd ask others in the room.
I'd go, now, anybody wanna guess what's a higher number?
75 or 19?
I'm here all day.
We can just keep guessing what's higher, 75 or 19?
Yeah, it's 75.
It's not a hard question.
Don't equivocate.
Go out and do a press conference.
And by the way, you'd be great.
It's too late now, cuz now you're gonna look like you're copying Trump.
But what you should have done earlier is do a press conference right in
the middle of Detroit, okay, in the middle of a factory, and go, not complicated,
you know whose side I'm on?
The workers.
The American workers.
And we're gonna get them higher wages.
We're gonna get them better job security.
We're gonna deliver for the average American.
Guys, even if you don't mean it, it's Politics 101.
Why aren't they doing Politics 101?
And then everybody tells me, no, Biden's the only one who could beat Trump.
He's a master politician.
Cenk, don't worry about it.
Let this guy run, and I'm sure he'll do great.
I'm sorry, guys.
You're whistling past the graveyard.
This guy can't even do elementary politics at this point.