SitemapVice President Joe Biden told union members in
Lordstown, Ohio on Thursday that Donald Trump doesn’t understand what it’s like
to be working class.
“He doesn’t understand anymore than you understand
what it’s like to live in a 30,000 square feet penthouse in New York,” Biden
said.
The United Autoworkers Local 1714 union hall was
about half full when the vice president took the podium. He and former Ohio
Gov. Ted Strickland were introduced by U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan.
Biden spent most of his speech establishing his
blue-collar bona fides. He said the Lackawanna Valley in Pennsylvania, where he
grew up, was a lot like the Mahoning Valley.
“We made the same stuff, man,” Biden said. “If you
knew where I came from, you’d think you were home.”
Biden established his history with the UAW,
attributing the success of his campaign to become a U.S. Senator in Delaware at
age 29 to their support. And he said he was “the SOB at the family picnic” who
insisted on the government bail out of the auto industry.
The vice president told stories about his father
and the hardships he faced, and talked about the lessons he learned growing up
in a working class family.
“We learned that success is not about whether you
get knocked down, it’s about how quickly you get up,” Biden said. “We bend. We
don’t break. We get up.”
He said Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party
presidential nominee, shares these qualities with the Mahoning Valley.
“I know some of you are mad at her,” Biden said.
“Let me tell you something, man. She gets it. And she never yields. She doesn’t
break. She gets knocked down, and she stands up.”
Biden said his biggest problem with Trump isn’t
his “cockamamie policies,” but the way he treats people — criticizing the
Republican nominee for his catch phrase, “you’re fired.”
“You oughta come from a household where some
people were fired,” Biden said. “Where the plant shut down. Where all of a
sudden they’re staring at the ceiling wondering how the hell they’re going to
make it.”
He also spent several minutes focusing on Trump’s
foreign policy statements, saying he’s already made the world less safe with
his statements on NATO and ISIS.
David Betras, chairman of the Mahoning County
Democratic Party, said the Clinton campaign knew what they were doing bringing
Biden to Northeast Ohio.
“This guy talks Valley talk,” Betras said. “You
could take him to the Avalon and have a pizza with him, and it would be like
he’s from here.”
Jose Valentin, sergeant at arms for UAW Local
1714, echoed Betras’s sentiments.
“It does something to you,” Valentin said. “He
inspires you, the way he talks. He’s like one of us.”
Following his speech in Lordstown, Biden made
stops at the Canfield Fair and Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation.
Ian Beniston, executive director of YNDC, said the
visit was pretty surreal.
“The 40 minutes came and went pretty quickly,”
Beniston said. “[It was a] lot of planning for a couple minutes, but it was fun.”
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development initially contacted Beniston and told him a government official
wanted to visit YNDC and see some of their work. Closer to Thursday he said he
was contacted by the White House and told it was the vice president.
They took Biden down a street where they have
fixed several houses, and he asked about the work and met with neighbors,
Beniston said.
After leaving YNDC, Biden flew to Cleveland for a
campaign event at UAW Local 1005 in Parma, Ohio.
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