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UAW Vice President Mike Booth: "The debate last night is not the defining moment of President Biden."
One of Booth's slides during Friday's speech.
One day after the widely proclaimed political disaster that was President Joe Biden’s debate performance, the vice president of one of the nation’s largest unions told a convention full of labor-friendly politicos in New Haven that he’s still standing behind the incumbent Democrat.
His reasons: Biden has delivered for working people. And Donald Trump suffers from just so much “verbal diarrhea.”
United Auto Workers (UAW) Vice President Michael Booth offered that take on the national political story of the moment on Friday afternoon as he spoke to a roomful of delegates at the Connecticut AFL-CIO’s 15th Biennial Political Convention, which was held over two days in the ballroom of the Omni hotel in downtown New Haven.
Booth became UAW’s second-in-command in 2022 and helped oversee its successful strike last year against the “Big Three” automakers.
During a Friday afternoon speech at the convention, he shared a history of the American labor movement that emphasized the importance of having a pro-labor president in the White House.
“There’s an old saying: ‘From the ballot box to the bread box,’” Booth told the delegates, emphasizing the importance of national politics to everyday life.
At Thursday night’s presidential debate, Booth said, former President and Republican nominee Donald Trump was “baloney.” He added, “I’m being polite.”
After his speech, Booth told the Independent that “the debate last night is not the defining moment of President Biden,” who stood with UAW workers on the picket line during last year’s strike. He noted the president’s pro-labor track record before pivoting back to former President Trump.
“Trump suffers from verbal diarrhea,” Booth said. He cited a list of Trump’s lies from the debate, including the former president’s claim to have lowered insulin prices for seniors. Trump is “smug,” Booth said, “he’s never worked at a job in his life.”
LIUNA member Chad Brault chimed in: “You gotta know what it is to have $20 in your account and go to work.” (Click here to read about the more panicked state that some Democratic Party leaders are in following Biden’s fumbling performance during Thursday’s debate.)
Asked about recent divisions in the UAW and labor unions across the country over the war in Gaza, Booth was brief and to the point: “War is bad. People are dying. UAW has asked very clearly for a ceasefire.”
Booth’s speech came right before a session in which the CT AFL-CIO delegates voted to endorse current city climate czar Steve Winter in the Democratic primary race for state representative of the 94th General Assembly District, among a slew of state-level Democratic incumbents in the New Haven region.
New Haven-area state legislators endorsed at Friday's convention.
