It’s no secret that both the Republican and Democratic presidential tickets would love to receive a 2024 endorsement from the International Association of Fire Fighters, which is meeting this week in Boston. It’s why Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz addressed the labor union on Wednesday and received a warm welcome.
A day later, his Republican counterpart’s reception was noticeably frostier. NBC News reported:
Upon taking the stage at the International Association of Fire Fighters convention in Boston, Vance was met with a mix of mild cheers and boos, acknowledging there might be some “haters” in the crowd. Trump’s running mate also drew a mix of audible boos and cheers after he claimed that he and the former president are “proud to be the most pro-worker Republican ticket in history.”
I realize there’s a degree of subjectivity in such matters, but the booing sounded pretty robust to me.
JD Vance: President Trump and I are proud to be the most pro-worker Republican ticket in history.
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 29, 2024
Crowd: Booooooo pic.twitter.com/InKPhT3TRw
A Washington Post report added that the GOP vice presidential nominee was booed yet again during the same appearance after he referred to the Republican Party as “the party of the American worker.”
It’s not too surprising that much of the audience in Boston knew better. As a New York Times report summarized just last week, Vance’s running mate has a record that trails after him like cans tied to a bumper: “[T]he Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board under Mr. Trump generally took a deregulatory approach to worker issues and union protections. His administration argued that employers should be able to prevent workers from bringing class action lawsuits, and sought funding cuts for workplace safety programs. His deputy labor secretary once worked as a lobbyist to prevent the federal minimum wage from applying to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth where some workers earned less than $1 an hour.”
An Associated Press report last year came to a similar conclusion: “[U]nion leaders say Trump’s record in the White House speaks for itself. Union leaders have said his first term was far from worker-friendly, citing unfavorable rulings from the nation’s top labor board and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as unfulfilled promises of automotive jobs.”
It was around this same time that the former president suggested UAW union members shouldn’t pay their union dues. That anti-labor rhetoric was hardly unusual. Just two weeks ago Trump participated in an online event with conspiratorial billionaire Elon Musk, whom the Republican candidate praised for taking a hardline with employees. “They go on strike,” the former president said. “I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, ‘That’s OK. You’re all gone. You’re all gone. So every one of you is gone,’ and you are the greatest.” The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg soon followed with a column on this, with a headline that read, “Trump Is No Longer Even Pretending to Champion the Working Class.” With this in mind, if Vance was surprised to be booed, he shouldn’t have been.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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