WATCH: Biden Harris 2024, DNC Host Press Conference Calling Out Trump Vance Project 2025 Agenda to Terminate Health Care, Gut Social Security, and Destroy Unions Arrow

Today in Milwaukee, U.S. Senator Cory Booker, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, and Biden-Harris 2024 Deputy Campaign Manager Quentin Fulks hosted a press conference calling out Donald Trump and J.D. Vance's extreme Project 2025 agenda to rip away health care access, slash Social Security and Medicare, and rig the economy for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations at the expense of working families.

WATCH THE PRESS CONFERENCE HERE

"We're at a crossroads here, and it couldn't be more stark. We have a pro-union president in office right now. We have a party that fights and protects unions. We have a party that protects women's rights to choose. We have a party that's proven they can lower health care costs, lower prescription drug costs, expand health coverage," said U.S. Senator Cory Booker. "This is a stark choice folks between having health care and not. Between having reproductive rights and not. Between having affordable prescription drugs and not between having retirement security and not. But when it comes to the sacred American democracy, between our elections and preserving who we are, we now know that there is a team that believes the only way we will support the outcome of this election is if we win and if we lose we will use every bit of resources and power we do to subvert the ultimate will of the people, and that is unacceptable."

"If you're a working person out there and you're considering this question of, 'who do I vote for,' I think you should ask yourself: Does this Project 2025 agenda make my life better if it were to become law? Would it make my life better? […] You've seen workers, they're rising up all across this country because they're fed up," said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. "I believe when working people have the facts and they see the stark choices that we've been talking about this morning, we are going to invest in ourselves. We are going to invest in our future, and we are going to support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who have a clear record and stand with working people."

"Donald Trump's Republican Party will always choose big, greedy anti-union extremists over the working men and women of America," said Biden-Harris 2024 Deputy Campaign Manager Quentin Fulks. "We've witnessed the greatest economic recovery that this nation has ever seen, and that's all thanks to the hard work of President Biden. Donald Trump called Milwaukee horrible, but the reality is there's nothing more horrible than his vision for America. There's only one ticket with the most pro-union, pro-worker president that this country has ever seen, and that is the Democratic ticket with President Biden and Vice President Harris. And with the American people's support this November, the Biden-Harris administration will continue to fight for hardworking families for four more years."

"President Biden is building the economy from the bottom up and the middle out. President Biden is taking on corporate greed and fighting to bring down costs. He faced down the biggest, most arrogant special interest in the country, the big pharmaceutical companies, and brought down the price of insulin to $35 a month for people on Medicare. Now he wants to do the same for every American. That contrast is clear as day," said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler. "We need a president who fights for working people, not for the ultra-billionaires, a president who's already expanded overtime protections, who's banned noncompete agreements, who's consistently fought and advocated for workers' rights, a president fighting to lower healthcare costs and expanding the Affordable Care Act. The last thing we need is a president who spent four years in office putting corporations first and the rest of us last, getting back into office to repeat the process on steroids."

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FULKS:

Good morning. Thank you all for being here yesterday. Donald Trump, JD Vance and their extreme Maga Republican friends kicked off their convention. What was the theme yesterday? Make America wealthy again. But by America they mean rich people, sure they pretended to mean not just the super wealthy and corporations. They pretended to mean everyone. They pretended that they are pro worker, pro Union Party, but the America saw right through their act. Last night's audience certainly did not show a lot of enthusiasm during the prime time remarks about standing up for America's workers. The response could have been described as lukewarm at best, some tepid applause here and there a forced smile from former President Trump when he would realize that the camera was panned on him. But that's hardly surprising, because Donald Trump's Republican Party will always choose big, greedy anti union extremists over the working men and women of America. So if they want to talk about the economy, let's do that. Trump's disastrous job record is just the beginning of his long list of economic failures. He offshore 10s of 1000s of manufacturing jobs, including jobs that could have stayed or been created right here in the state of Wisconsin. His tax schemes gave incentive to companies to ship jobs overseas, rather than keep them here in America. He promised a manufacturing boom, he promised an infrastructure week, he promised the revitalization of an auto industry, and he delivered on none of it. And who paid the price for his failures? Hard working Americans, if given the chance, he won't just do this all again. He'll do much, much worse, Trump was one of the most anti union presidents too. He has openly insulted labor leaders, despairs union workers as dues sucking people, and said that he wants to get rid of organized labor if given the chance. Now he's desperately trying to cover for his record to win those same voters, but Trump is kidding himself if he thinks hardworking Americans will be fooled by these lies. Let's be clear. Donald Trump will side with Wall Street over Main Street every single day of the week. President Biden is the most pro union, pro worker president this nation has ever seen. He's the first sitting president to ever walk a picket line. He's had workers back time and time again. Major unions across this country have endorsed President Biden because they believe in his vision of building an economy that works for everyone. President Biden knows that when an economy is pro union and pro labor, everyone gets ahead. President Biden is the jobs president. He's created nearly 16 million jobs. We've seen the lowest unemployment rate in over 50 years, including record low black unemployment. President Biden didn't just deliver an infrastructure week. He's ushered in the start of an infrastructure decade, while Trump promised broke promise after promise. President Biden is delivering a great economic.

Come back and a historic manufacturing boom. We haven't just had a bounce back from the economic effects of the pandemic. We've witnessed the greatest economic recovery that this nation has ever seen, and that's all thanks to the hard work of President Biden

Donald Trump. Called Milwaukee horrible. But the reality is, there's nothing more horrible than his vision for America. There's only one ticket with the most pro union, pro worker president that this country has ever seen, and that is the Democratic ticket with President Biden and vice president Harris, and with the American people's support this November, the Biden Harris administration will continue to fight for hardworking families for four more years, and with that is my pleasure to turn it over to chair wickler,

WIKLER:

Thank you so much, Mr. Foulkes, and thanks everyone for being here today. Welcome to a wonderful city, the city of Milwaukee. On behalf of the entire Democratic Party of Wisconsin, I want to welcome everyone to spend a lot of time in this great state, the state that tipped the Electoral College for President Biden and vice president Harris in 2020 a state that is so excited next month to travel to our neighboring state of Chicago and join Democrats from across the country in lifting up and celebrating Our nominee Joe Biden and our nominee for vice president, Kamala Harris, but at this moment when the Republican Party convention, when the Maga Acolytes have descended on the City of Milwaukee and on the state of Wisconsin, we want to be very clear that we know That what Trump and Vance are promising for this country and for this state is a continuation of their record of economic failure and betrayal of workers during this Republican convention, even as democratic activists across the state and across the country are knocking on doors to support President Biden and vice president Harris, it's incumbent on us to call out what we see from the stage and what we know that Trump and Vance are proposing for America. It's all written down in Project 2025, which JD Vance proudly said was full of good ideas, but we know that these ideas aren't just bad, they're dangerous. They're dangerous for our country.

Donald Trump and JD Vance want to ransack the public treasury to hand out massive tax cuts to billionaires and stick working Americans with the bill. We know that they want to strip Americans of their basic freedoms, like access to reproductive health care, even threatening access to forms of contraception. We know that they not only want to leave working families behind, they want to kick them off the ladder of opportunity and pull up the ladder behind them.

We know this not just because of what they they and their allies and their staff have laid out in plain Inc in their project 2025, plans, but because of what they did last time Donald Trump had power, here in Wisconsin, we had a front row seat to an iconic Donald Trump failure. It was the Foxconn plant. Donald Trump came to Wisconsin. He promised the eighth wonder of the world. He broke ground with a golden shovel and for a project that would have been the biggest giveaway in history to a foreign corporation, Scott Walker and Donald Trump bulldozed 100 homes and businesses.

They spent more than $500 million in taxpayer money to pave the way for a massive facility that never appeared. Donald Trump, famously, was the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer American jobs than when he entered. 13,000 of the jobs that never took place were at that Foxconn facility. What we saw from Donald Trump was broken promises and empty rhetoric and then leaving us in his dust

if we get four more years in office of Donald Trump, now with his friend, mega extremist in chief, JD Vance, we can expect much more of the same thing. And frankly, Wisconsinites cannot afford it. Wisconsinites can't afford the inflation bomb that President Trump, by former President Trump, and JD Vance are proposing, and we can't afford more broken promises to Wisconsin workers.

What we need is the people who actually deliver for our state. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. President Biden was here in Wisconsin, in Racine County, this may at the very place where Donald Trump's promise went up in smoke. President Biden and AFL CIO, President Schuler and Microsoft President Brad Smith came together and laid out the plan for a $3.3 billion Microsoft data center. 1000s of union jobs creating this data center. The work already underway. That's what.

Progress looks like, and you can see it all over Wisconsin. You can see it with the orange traffic cones, with the cranes. You can see it with the workers hard at work every day, building up America in a country and in a state where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris actually kept their word and more.

President Biden is building the economy from the bottom up and the middle out. President Biden is taking on corporate greed and fighting to bring down costs. He faced down the biggest, most arrogant special interest in the country, the big pharmaceutical companies, and brought down the price of insulin to $35 a month for people on Medicare. Now he wants to do the same for every American. That contrast is clear as day. We need a president who fights for working people, not for the ultra billionaires, a president who's already expanded overtime protections, who's banned noncompete agreements, who's consistently fought and advocated for workers' rights, a president fighting to lower healthcare costs and expanding the Affordable Care Act, the last thing we need is a president who spent four years in office putting corporations first and the rest of us last, getting back into office to repeat the process on steroids. It's simple, if we want to create if we want to keep creating jobs, if we want to keep expanding opportunities, if we want to keep strengthening unions and the working families who believe and know that unions are a key path to the middle class, we have got to support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and that's exactly what Wisconsinites are doing across the state, democratic volunteers, activists, 1000s of them, are knocking on doors, are making phone calls, are talking to voters every day about the stakes, and what We hear at the doors is that no one wants the project 2025 agenda. No one wants a $5 trillion tax cut for the ultra wealthy. What they want is a president and vice president will invest in them, and that's exactly what we're going to do. That's exactly what we're going to elect and reelect when we go to the ballot this November. And with that, I want to introduce my friend, Senator Cory Booker, thank you.

Booker

Thanks so much. Good morning, everybody. It is really good for me to be in Milwaukee. I have to say, as a former mayor of a great American city that so many people like Donald Trump like to demean and degrade our urban spaces. It's incredible to see a city like this that is doing so much to help people, to empower its residents, to do what a lot of cities are doing, and trying to tell their truth, create jobs and expand opportunity. It is really a shame when you have leaders in high positions punching down on people and saying such awful things like Donald Trump did about this incredible diverse community.

I'm a guy from Jersey and entered politics in nonpartisan races. When I was mayor of the city of Newark, it wasn't about right or left, it was about what was the best thing to move forward. And I made a reputation for myself about bringing people together from across the aisle to do good things, to empower people to succeed.

I'm here obviously speaking on behalf of the Democratic Party, but I am really interested in speaking about the clear choice that Americans have before them right now, and to remind folks that despite the pomp and circumstance I'm seeing in the RNC convention, what the truth is, using Donald Trump's own words and what he did in his first term, people should understand that in the Senate, I've been there for 10 years and Congress, I have worked with Democrats constantly to fight against Republican attempts to strip away health care from Americans, to undermine people's reproductive rights, to try to fight to secure people's retirement securities, and again last night, which had me really curious, to Be the party that consistently stands up for labor.

Joe Biden is the most pro labor president in my lifetime and four years of Donald Trump. What he did with the nrlb, the National Labor Relations Board, what he did with OSHA is he tried to undermine consistently, union rights and workers rights and so let me make this clear, especially when you see frightening documents like Project 2025 when you see what this President did when he was in office, let me make some things clear. Donald Trump is trying to end the Affordable Care Act, widely popular amongst Republicans, Independents and Democrats, Americans should understand what that means. Remember, we stopped Donald Trump in the Senate. Democrats unified with a few Republicans stopped him from doing what he said he would do time and time again, what Congress people on the Republican side voted does.

If not hundreds of times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, what Donald Trump and JD Vance say they want to do? What would that mean for you as Americans?

It would mean that people with preexisting conditions again would not be able to get health care. It means that health care costs would go up remarkably, because millions of Americans rely on the discounts in the exchanges. It would mean young people would be kicked off insurance again, as opposed to being able to stay on their parents' insurance until they're 26 it would mean people with complicated, difficult diseases would not be able to find the care they need

Medicaid and Medicare, something that, again, Republicans in Congress and their policy groups constantly say they want to privatize. They want to limit things like 2025 project. 2025 say they want to cap infecting millions of Americans. We Senate Democrats, we House Democrats, President Biden, we want to fight to make sure that Medicaid and Medicare is not just secure, but we continue to drive down the cost of health coverage and prescription drugs. You saw four years of Donald Trump, prescription drug costs were continuing to go up under that President, President Biden, however, capped out of pocket expenses for our seniors to $2,000 President Biden and Senate Democrats and House Democrats were able to lower the cost of insulin to $35 and reproductive care, abortion care is health care.

JD Vance, and Donald Trump have said awful things about criminalizing people who seek abortion care. They have attacked Planned Parenthood time and time again trying to defund it.

They put us in this dystopian world where we criminalize women or doctors that try to save women's lives.

If you support Roe v Wade, this is a clear choice between a president who brags about upending ending Roe v Wade, and the president and vice president who are some of the most powerful voices for re establishing Roe v Wade as the law of the land and Social Security. God bless America. When you have worked all your life and paid into Social Security, and you hear what Republicans are trying to do from their policy groups in Congress all the way to what you've heard and read in Project 2025.

Folks that want to limit benefits, they want to raise the retirement age, do the kind of things that strip away security and resources from hardworking Americans who paid into Social Security, understanding the bargain in the deal all their lives they want to upend that. I've seen this and heard this and watched this for 10 years in the Senate, people trying to shake that fundamental bargain and end Social Security as we know it.

We're at a crossroads here, and it couldn't be more stark.

We have a pro union president in office right now. We have a party that fights and protects unions. We have a party that party that protects women's rights to choose. We have a party that's proven they can lower health care costs, lower prescription drug costs, expand health coverage. Heck for black people in America, we now are at the point where most never before in history, if we had this many black people covered by health insurance, and the party that wants to end all of that, I want to end by saying that this is a tough political season.

I serve in the Senate with a lot of folks and like Tammy Baldwin, who who's my friend here in Wisconsin, who has done so much to create jobs here. She's a leader of Buy America. Tammy Baldwin is this incredible woman who is one of those workhorses in the Senate, not a show horse at all.

And what I love about Tammy Baldwin is she's the part of us in the Senate that really works across the aisle, and we were talking yesterday about this choice of one of our colleagues to be

Trump's vice president, and we both wish him well, pray for his family. It's not easy to put yourself out there, especially on a presidential ticket. I saw the attacks, the unfair, unjust tax on Kamala Harris, one of the again, one of our colleagues, good American,

but the choice of JD Vance worries me because of this.

It presents this stark contrast in our country, stark contrast not between Republicans and Democrats, but between President Trump's first vice president, between President Trump.

First Vice President, Pence and his current vice president. What is the stark difference between the two?

What is the stark difference between Donald Trump's first vice president and why he says he chose his second vice presidential choice?

It's the same thing we see with so many people from Donald Trump's original circle, his former chief of staff, his former Secretary of Defense, who have all come out and say they don't support Donald Trump's presidency, because when Donald Trump made a move on our democracy and our elections and spread the worst lie I've ever seen that caused one of the lowest, most shameful moments in American history, on January 6, where people stormed into our Capitol, where we literally had a trial in the United States Senate, where both Republicans and Democrats voted to convict Donald Trump,

Vice President Pence did the right thing for our democracy.

Vice President Pence moved to certify an election that Donald Trump's chief election officer said was fair, and now he's chosen a vice president who said that he would not have done that if he was the Vice President, then he would have lurched our country, perhaps into its worst constitutional crisis in my lifetime and generations before.

This is a stark choice folks between having health care and not between having reproductive rights and not between having affordable prescription drugs and not between having retirement security and not but when it comes to the sacred American democracy, between our elections and preserving who we are, we now know that There is a team that believes the only way we will support the outcome of this election is if we win and if we lose, we will use every bit of resources and power we do to subvert the ultimate will of the people, and that is unacceptable. Ladies and gentlemen, I now bring up extraordinary person, a leader of one of our greatest unions. There are, in fact, this is a woman who is the first woman to lead a union of 12 million Americans. I want to mention this because I think it's one of the most special things.

It's a person that leads with love.

She talks about the urgency of kindness and that we should have an America that works for everybody in many ways. She is not just the leader in the right place at the right time and in America that the President Biden and vice president Harris are trying to make an economy that works for everybody, but she's actually in the trenches fighting for the rights of so many people, but understands that how you lead is so important at a time that there's too much divisiveness and hate. Liz Schuler is one of those people who is a light worker and someone that I have come to respect a lot, and I bring her to the microphone now, thank you.

LIZ

Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Smattering of applause. I think it needs to be louder than they remembered their job.

We do represent journalists as well. Good morning, everyone again. I'm Liz Schuler, AFL CIO president, and I'm here on behalf of 12 and a half million workers in unions all over this country, including Senator six and a half million women in the labor movement. A lot of people don't see us as the largest organization of working women in the country.

I can someone can tweet that, but and I'm here actually proudly, proudly supporting the most pro union president in history, Joe Biden, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who have a track record of standing up for workers and fighting for them every single day. I'm here to talk about the facts and the best path for working Americans and both parties in this country. Used to know, you know, we're talking about bipartisanship here.

The senator was just referring to it.

It used to be that that both parties knew that when workers did well, the entire country did well. And in fact, I just uncovered some photos from our building dedication in 1956 at the AFL CIO headquarters in Washington, DC. I.

We are right across from the White House. Dwight D Eisenhower was the president. He walked across the lawn to dedicate our building. That's where we were. We were in a bipartisan place. As I speak today, there are Republicans in Congress who actually have voted for pro worker legislation, not enough of them, but we know that this can be done, like the bipartisan infrastructure bill, right, and that is bringing opportunity for workers all over this country, but Trump and JD Vance's agenda, this project 2025 agenda, does the exact opposite. It is not make America wealthy again. It is make the richest people in this country even richer.

We are here in Milwaukee during the Republican National Convention, and as workers all over this country decide who they will support in November, there's going to be a lot of rhetoric. We saw the start of it last night over these next few days. But if you're a working person out there and you're considering this question of Who do I vote for, I think you should ask yourself,

Does this project, 2025 agenda, make my life better if it were to become law? Would it make my life better? Would my life be better when these project 2025 extremists, eliminate my union?

Will my life be better when they take away my ability to bargain a fair contract or go on strike? You've seen workers, they're rising up all across this country because they're fed up. Right?

Will my life be better when Trump lets my company force me to work overtime without overtime pay. People don't think it's possible in the year 2024 but it is according to project 2025 and will my life be better when they got the Affordable Care Act and rip away affordable health care when they end Social Security and Medicare as we know it, programs that workers have earned and paid into their entire lives, programs that Trump's new running mate JD Vance calls the biggest roadblocks to fiscal sanity.

Will my life be better when Trump JD Vance and these extremists hand even more power to billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who are more interested in going to space on rocket ships than they are helping working people, because those are the things that Donald Trump and JD Vance are telling you to believe it's right there. That's what the Republican Party is telling us openly that they want to do. People want facts these days. Those are the facts, and those are the stakes for working people. And I believe when working people have the facts and they see the stark choices that we've been talking about this morning, we are going to invest in ourselves. We are going to invest in our future, and we are going to support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who have a clear record and stand with working people. Thank you so much. I'm going to turn it back over to Quentin.

Thank you chair. Wickler, thank you Liz, President Schuller, thank you Senator Booker, I think we're going to open it up to some questions. This is my favorite part. I

How has the rhetoric changed? Fox News, how has the rhetoric changed in light of the assassination attempt, with being here at the RNC and representing the DNC and Biden Harris administration, it hasn't changed. I would say that we've been focused on talking about the issues, reproductive freedom, workers rights, social security, Medicare, the economy, a fair tax code. The Pro act President and the Vice President have been very clear on their vision when it comes to the agenda that they want to put forward for Americans. Our campaign has been talking about that for months, since the reelection was announced, and we're going to continue to do so, as the President said, This is how democracy works. We're going to continue to have a candid conversation about the stark contrast. I think Senator Booker laid it out very, very well that there are two very, very different visions for this country. And I think it is absolutely surmised at the very tip top of that, with the vice presidential picks of Donald Trump, we see that.

Yeah, but underneath that, Americans at home are worried about their mortgages, they're worried about their rent, they're worried about health care, they're worried about child care, they're worried about how they're going to continue to put gas in their tanks. President Biden and vice president Harris are focused on doubling down and continue to do the work for the American people, and we're going to continue to draw the contrast of what that work actually means and what it means for the lives of those American people, and it's either that President Biden and vice president Harris's agenda, or, as President Schuler said, the vision of project 2025 and we know what that would do to workers rights and people's rights across this country. Ken,

I wanted to ask you about the virtual roll call process for the party. Do you think there that is necessary now, just given that Ohio is no longer the impediment that we that you thought it once was, and do you think that that the party should really have the opportunity to talk about this at the convention in Chicago, you know, not go through with a virtual process weeks beforehand.

Look, so for anybody that couldn't hear, I think that the question was about Ohio's virtual roll call and the DNC moving forward with a virtual roll call. I think the answer here is very simple. Is the fact that, you know, there have been virtual roll calls in previous presidential elections. Ohio Republicans decided to play games. We have an obligation to make sure, as we have said, to stand by fair and free elections and make sure that the process runs as smoothly as possible. They tried to do a rule change. It is our obligation as a campaign to make sure that President Biden is on the ballot as well as Donald Trump, for anybody who is trying to play those games, and any candidates who compete the process turn in their signatures to get on the ballot and have ballot access. But we're not going to leave it up to Ohio Republicans to have President Biden not be on the ballot in every single state. He has deserved that right. He's earned that right, and so we're going to continue with that path and not play games about who is on this ballot to make sure that there is an election where candidates from both major parties are on the ballot, as well as any third party candidates who have qualified and met the signature requirements to be on the ballot, and if we stop the process and then they unresolved.

But no, I didn't dodge the question. It's the fact that they solved it with a legislative fix. We've moved forward. We instituted this before they had a fix, and we're going to continue on that path, because we're not going to leave it up to them to change the rules. Again, a number of billboards that have gone up around Milwaukee today. Can you talk a little bit about the messaging behind those which billboards from ours or from from Donald Trump, your guys's that have gone up today? Look, I think that one Donald Trump is here trying to say that he loves Milwaukee. I think chair wickler, if he wants to chime in, can talk about how Donald Trump actually feels about Milwaukee. But from us, it's very simple. The agenda and the vision here are very different project 2025, and what Donald Trump and Maga Republicans want to do in this country, gotten checks and balances, giving Donald Trump more power to serve as a dictator. On top of the immunity that a Supreme Court that he largely appointed has given him the ability to stop workers from being able to go on strike, getting paid overtime for work that they do, getting rid of things like the Department of Education, that is what's at stake. And so our campaign is highlighting that to make sure one the voters know the contrast in that and that to everyone's very, very aware of how Donald Trump feels about Milwaukee, despite what his billboards are saying, and also what project 2025 would do for average Americans around this country. So I don't know if you want to add anything, former President Trump didn't just say Milwaukee was horrible. He oversaw an administration that failed Milwaukee. You can tell whether someone loves a place by what they do to lift it up. And Donald Trump's administration was bad for Milwaukeeans. Republican Tom Tiffany is a congressman from Wisconsin. He wrote recently that Republicans have used Milwaukee as a punching bag for years. We've seen a republican party that has really turned its back on cities like Milwaukee and cities across the country, and we know that Milwaukee is a wonderful place. We know that Wisconsin is stronger because Milwaukee is such a wonderful city and as a state, in every part of our state, we all do better when we all do better, and so we want to, we want to make sure the voters know not just what people say, but whose side these candidates are on. President Biden has been a tremendous success, delivering infrastructure investments, delivering expansions of health care, delivering expansions in jobs and small business creation, passing the bipartisan infrastructure law to replace every lead lateral pipe in Milwaukee. Donald Trump said he would do all kinds of things like that, and then completely failed to show up when it mattered most. So we want to make sure that voters here in.

Across Wisconsin are voting based on what these people will actually do in the next four years, and we think that Donald Trump, in this case, would be as good as his word.

Thank you. Andrew Feinberg, here with the independent you talked a bit about Project 2025, and reproductive health care, Social Security medical care. But there are a lot of fringe ideas out there that aren't necessarily in Project 2025 that both Donald Trump and JD Vance subscribe to. One is devaluing American currency. Little esoteric, but something that could really put inflation into hyperdrive? Is that something that you guys are going to be talking to? Yeah, look, I think that we're going to combat every single issue that Donald Trump and JD Vance put forth. They've tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but at the end of the day, number of his staff, cabinet officials, and people closest to him have been involved in that. It's a plan that is written for him to be his second term agenda, and that's what we're going off of. I think over the next several days, we're going to continue to see Trump and Maga Republicans double down on that. But it's no surprise to us that Donald Trump has ideas that are going to drive up inflation. It's what he did when he left office. As you heard President Schuler say, he's the first president to leave office with fewer jobs than when he came in. He was disastrous for the American economy. It was on the brink of collapse. When President Biden and vice president Harris took office, we continue to see job reports that inflation is coming down because of the work of the Biden Harris administration. And so we're absolutely going to draw that contrast. I think the economy and inflation is at the heart and the core of the issues when we talk about what is facing Americans across this country, inflation and the economy and how they continue to provide goods and services into their households is paramount among that.

Look money. For me as an operative, it's obviously important. It's an important factor in politics and campaigns today. That is just the way it is. But I'm more focused on what we are doing with the money. Our campaign is using every dollar that we are raising from grassroots fundraising, major donor fundraising, to invest on the ground, to be able to talk to voters. We see none of that from Donald Trump. We are inching towards having 1500 coordinated staff on the ground, 300 field offices across the battleground states. You have to use this money to campaign. We are in a very fragmented media environment. All that money going on TV. There's obviously also a saturation point. Our campaign has been making sure that we are going to have that money invested on the ground to communicate, building a volunteer base, because we've got to get the message out about the stark differences in the contrast. And so we can't control where Elon Musk or anyone else wants to put their money, but what we can focus on is what we are doing with ours and the infrastructure that our candidate campaign has been building since day one.

Laura garsoni here for USA Today, some people are reading JD Vance's nomination as a sign that the center of gravity is shifting in the GOP on economic issues. You know, he visited a UAW picket line he signaled he might support antitrust legislation. I mean, is the GOP pivoting at all from the record that you've spent this press conference criticizing. Look, I think that the GOP is trying to pull the wool over American's eyes about what they actually stand for. I do not think that JD Vance by any means, makes the Republican Party or the Maga extremist party under Donald Trump any more pro union or pro labor than it was before we've seen the records and where they stand for when it comes to American wages. We've seen where they stand when it comes to the cost of prescription drugs and continuing to be on the side of Big Pharma. We see where they stand on overtime. We see where they stand on strikes. So absolutely not President. Biden's work speaks for itself. He's interested in the work of saving pensions. Where was Donald Trump? He has not done any of that. Donald Trump went to Michigan, and instead of going to a labor plant, he went to a non labor plant and forced non union workers to hold pro labor signs. They are lying, but their record speaks for itself, and if he gets anywhere near the White House again, it will be disastrous for American workers.

Yeah, and I'll just say it is spin. It's it's talking points, we have seen what this Biden administration has done for workers protected, as we said, our pensions. That was huge when the American rescue plan not only saved our country from disastrous effects of the pandemic, but to have investments in retirement security for workers that we never thought possible was because of Joe Biden and this administration. Joe Biden, yes, he was the first sitting American president to walk a union picket line.

JD Vance showed up for the first time ever, as you said, and it was basically in preparation for his political.

Career, right? He doesn't have a history for standing with workers, and workers will not be fooled. Joe Biden walks the picket line. Donald Trump crosses picket lines. We actually have a photograph of him crossing an IATSE picket line. The issue of JD Vance was personal to a lot of Wisconsinites, because Wisconsin is a state where Donald Trump's threat to democracy has never faded. We came within one vote of our state Supreme Court to overturning the presidential election in 2020 and after Dobbs fell for 451 days. Wisconsinites could not access abortion care in our state. JD, Vance represents a clear signal by Donald Trump that he is doubling down on his attacks on democracy and his commitment to ripping away reproductive freedom from Americans. JD Vance said he would not have certified the election he supports an abortion ban without exceptions for rape and incest. That's who Donald Trump wants a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Hi, I'm Oriana with notice. So yesterday, Republicans approved the RNC platform that took out federal bans and most anti abortion rhetoric from the text. And I wanted to get your thoughts that on what do you think it says to the GOP national agenda seems less restrictive on abortion.

It seems that they are continuing to lie. I just answered a question about them lying on workers' rights. Now they're trying to lie about women's rights. I don't care about what text they put on paper. I care about the actions of the people. Donald Trump has said numerous times, there needs to be punishment for women. He's talked about monitoring pregnancies, criminalizing women, criminalizing doctors. That is what the Republican platform is. What is coming out of their candidate's mouth and their nominee's mouth. And I think we've seen time and again where Donald Trump stands, not just on reproductive rights, but on IVF, on family planning, he's continuing to double down on that, and so there is no amount of text on paper or websites that they can approve or plan out that is going to detract from the fact that Donald Trump and his opponent. JD Vance, you just heard Ben wickler or his nominee for VP. JD Vance, I just heard chair wickler talk about the fact that JD Vance said two wrongs don't make a right when he's asked about cases of rape and incest and women getting abortion from that. That is the Republican Party platform when it comes to reproductive freedom than abortion rights in this country. Can you repeat the question? Yeah. I mean, it's absolutely a political strategy. But again, it comes to the fact that the Republic fact that the Republican Party understands that they are on the wrong side of these issues and are trying to moderate themselves. But the American people have seen where they really stand on these issues.

Okay, Sean O'Brien has said he's not going to endorse this year.

Said to be hedging his bets in case of a Trump victory. If Trump ends up winning, what do you think? Ms Schuler, what do you think are the chances that the Teamsters and Sean O'Brien would be able to influence a Trump administration to move away from the Republican historic opposition to policies that benefit unionization and union workers.

What we're focused on right now is drawing the contrast between these two candidates. The track record is clear that in Trump's first term, we've seen this movie before we gave him a chance. In fact, when he first got elected, the labor movement said, we're going to call balls and strikes. We're going to see, see how this plays out. And fast forward, four years later, the record is very, very clear. It speaks for itself, and you've heard it all today about, you know, gutting the National Labor Relations Board. That's the board that actually adjudicates when workers rise up and take a risk and try to form a union. That board decides whether they get to do that and whether it's stacked with people who actually can see clearly and stand on the side of workers or stand on the side of corporations. Our labor laws are badly broken in this country. They're tilted toward corporations, and so now we're in a position where we have a Biden NLRB who is actually giving workers a fighting chance when they take those risks to form their union and have their voices heard. So we've seen the track record of the we've seen this movie before four years of Donald Trump, and now we see what it's like to actually have a president who will stand up and fight for working people. The fact that these investments alone have had labor standards attached to them, that taxpayer dollars are investing in things like infrastructure and bringing whole new industries to this country, like semiconductors, that they have to actually be good to.

High wage, high road jobs, because that's what we deserve as a country. We deserve for people to actually make a decent living, to have health care security, to have retirement security, and that's what the policies of this administration have done. I just, you know, again, it's and I respect the questions and I respect the journalists are here, but it doesn't take much to see that you had four years of Donald Trump.

And so whatever they're going to say right now, they're belying the facts of what they've done.

Again, I don't whatever they're writing in a platform on women's reproductive rights is so undermined by what Donald Trump did?

He put three Supreme Court justices on the Supreme Court who, after generations of Roe v Wade, ripped it down and cast us into a world where, in states like mine, we are raising money, literally, for all of the women who can afford to come from states where you can't get an abortion, where you can't get reproductive rights, where you are literally in need of care to save your life because your child can't come to term, but you can't get the care in your state, we're raising Money for women, and women in my state are terrified because they've heard what Donald Trump and other congressional Republicans have said about a national abortion ban. It doesn't take much to just simply look at the four years of Donald Trump and see what you got, an erosion of women's rights, an erosion of reproductive rights, an erosion of abortion rights, a destruction and attack on planned parenthoods.

And so I don't care what they say. You have evidence. This Labor confusion should not be there. We have clarity. He picked for his Secretary of Labor, somebody that was avowedly anti union,

Joe Biden's Department of Labor is doing so much great work to protect workers, to fight for workers rights. We're having the worst heat wave right now in America.

It's stunning what's happening.

Joe Biden is working to do everything he can to get laws and actions through OSHA, to protect workers and give them things like President like crazy, things like rest breaks.

What a concept and what did Trump's OSHA do? What did Trump's nrlb do? National Labor Relations Board?

I mean, I saw what they did during the pandemic with meatpacking plants where people were dying and unsafe work conditions. They actually supported measures to speed up lines and get around protections for labor.

This is a clear contrast America. We have the president and vice president the most pro union, pro women's rights, pro health care, President in my lifetime.

And that's not rhetoric. There are receipts for all of this.

And you have a president who's four years was an attack on unions, an attack on organizing, attack on labor protections, and when it comes to actually creating jobs, this is the stunning thing. You have two different presidencies to compare. Let's look at the numbers who created the most jobs on their watch, Donald Trump, who is with Herbert Hoover on the least amount of created jobs, in fact, lost total jobs, or perhaps one of the greatest job creators in the modern presidency. Let's go to manufacturing jobs. A president whose rhetoric, who ran around this country saying he was going to create manufacturing jobs, but didn't, versus the president that has created the most, biggest boom in manufacturing jobs in decades. Let's talk about union jobs. We have a president that bragged that he was going to do infrastructure for America. There was an infrastructure month. I think there was an infrastructure week. I think, I think he had infrastructure days, but never produced an infrastructure bill. And then we have a president and Joe Biden, who, along with congressional Democrats was able to bring about a bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is the biggest investment in infrastructure ever, and then said, Stop, wait, we're going to make sure those are union jobs. There are kids in cities like Milwaukee and Camden.

Are getting apprenticeships in unions right now because of Joe Biden and congressional Democrats. This isn't complicated. You don't need a PhD. You don't need to be Woodward and Bernstein and have an investigative crew to simply lay two presidency side by side and see who has the best record on job creation, union jobs, manufacturing jobs, women's protections, safety and security at the workplace, we know what we have, and so all of our jobs is to simply tell the truth, to look at the numbers, look at the data.

I'm a man of faith in God we trust, but in politics, show me the numbers.

And the last four years, under the worst of circumstances, a global recession.

Globally, I travel around the world and see other countries struggling. The number one economy in the world is the United States of America. The strongest manufacturing sector in the world is the United States of America under this President and Democrats in Congress. It's not complicated, folks. And the last thing, I'm sorry I was sitting back there trying to be patient. I patient. Let these experts speak.

I have a simple test when I support a leader or not, simple test, you cannot lead the people if you don't love the people, not just the people who vote for you.

Do you love the people?

I think the way people talk about other folks in America is more of a reflection of who you are than who the person you're talking about is. I've listened to Donald Trump. I've known him for years, way before he was a politician, and I listened to the demeaning and degrading ways he talks about people and places, the way he talks about women who don't support him the way he talks about people in his own party. God, the disgusting things he said about my former governor, Chris Christie, the way he attacks people's weaknesses or disabilities. I I've heard how he talks about people. It does not connote anybody to believe that he loves folk and then there's Joe Biden. I ran against him in a primary my mother, to this day, teases me about how I just started really loving the guy, because I got to see him behind the scenes when nobody was watching. I believe another saying simple truth, someone who's nice to you but not nice to the waiter is not a nice person.

Look at folks when nobody is watching and how they act.

America, you have a lot of choices on policy or on facts. I believe the Democratic Party has done so much to attack rising costs, to attack rising prescription drugs, to fight through a globally bad economy and produce more jobs and more opportunity and better health care and greater coverage, I believe all of those things that really matter to households, but I want America to think about something else at a time where people are talking about tamping down political rhetoric. That is not enough.

We have a problem in this country that we hate each other just because of how we vote.

Fox News watchers, MSNBC watchers, they're told by these 24 hour stations to hate each other. Caricatures are being produced of Democrats and Republicans that are so far from the truth. I see it in the Senate. Nobody wants to talk about our bipartisan bills. Everybody wants to talk about our disagreement.

This is a vote on policy America. Choose who's going to be best for the bottom line of your family. But God, in this time, look for leaders that lead with love.

Look for people that don't just say, tamp down the rhetoric. Rise up the community, the beloved community that our country has to be support the people that know that even though you don't vote for me, you're not my enemy in this moment in our democracy, please vote for decency and kindness and empathy and grace. Those are the best American values and the best American virtues. Listen to how candidates talk about the other side, about Democrats if they're a Republican, or about Republicans those if they're a Democrat, that will show you whether they're a leader that really can bring us together.

Yes, the last thing I'll say is this world is in a wretchedly difficult place. From Haiti to Sudan, we're at a point in human history with the most food insecure people.

We are called in this country to be a light unto all nations. Choose who you want in the White House to be the nation that the world needs. Are they a president that talks about, excuse my language, shithole countries,

or are there a president that sees every nation with his people having dignity and potential and possibility and knows that America alone? Yeah, America first. America alone, we are the strongest nation on the planet. But America, with other nations in partnership for human rights and human dignity, we are invincible.

This is an election about what's best for your family. I know the Democrats Joe Biden are going to fight for your health care, fight for good paying jobs. Fight for your retirement security. But the thing we really need in this country right now is patriotism, and patriotism is love of country. And you cannot love your country unless you truly love your country, men and women, all of them, well, I can't think of a better way to end than that, so I want to thank you all for coming. I think we have some more of these this week, and I look forward to seeing you all at those Thank you. Thanks, everybody.

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