Biden blasts Trump on jobs in Labor Day speech
U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday took shots at his likely 2024 rival, Donald Trump, in a Labor Day speech aimed at shoring up support in Pennsylvania, one of a handful of states that are seen as politically competitive and likely to determine who wins the White House in 2024. - REUTERS
Transcript
00:00 Joe Biden took fresh shots at his likely 2024 rival Donald Trump in a Labor Day speech Monday
00:07 in front of union workers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a key battleground state.
00:12 "And you know, it wasn't that long ago we were losing jobs in this country.
00:16 In fact, the guy who held this job before me was just one of two presidents in history.
00:23 He was one of two presidents in history who left office with fewer jobs in America than
00:29 when he got elected office."
00:32 U.S. unemployment fell after Trump took office as president in 2017, and the jobs market
00:37 saw robust growth during much of his term.
00:40 But unemployment rose sharply toward the end of Trump's administration, in the economic
00:44 downturn of the global health crisis.
00:47 On Monday, Biden trumpeted his own record in contrast.
00:50 "Well, we're getting through this one of the greatest job creation periods in American
00:55 history.
00:56 For real, that's a fact."
00:57 Since January 2021, job growth has averaged 436,000 jobs per month, and now the U.S. is
01:03 four million jobs above the pre-pandemic peak.
01:07 Biden also cast himself, as he often has in the past, as a champion of labor unions and
01:12 the working class.
01:13 "When the last guy was here, he looked at the world from Park Avenue.
01:17 I look at it from Scranton, Pennsylvania.
01:19 I look at it from Claremont, Delaware.
01:23 Not a joke.
01:24 Let me say it loud and clear.
01:26 Wall Street didn't build America.
01:28 The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class.
01:34 That's a fact.
01:35 That's not a hyperbole.
01:38 That's a fact.
01:39 Unions built the middle class."
01:41 Rebuilding crumbling infrastructure has been a part of Biden's pitch to voters, with a
01:45 one trillion dollar infrastructure law pumping money into projects built with union labor.
01:51 On Monday, Trump spokesperson Stephen Chung said in a statement that Biden was "the destroyer
01:57 of American jobs" and continues to fuel runaway inflation with reckless big government spending,
02:03 and that Trump had produced a "booming economic recovery" while in office.
02:08 A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that 60 percent of Americans, including one in
02:13 three Democrats, disapproved of Biden's handling of inflation, though inflation has fallen
02:18 to 3.3 percent from its 7 percent peak last summer.
02:22 Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last month that inflation "remains too high."
02:27 The polls also showed that the economy, unemployment and jobs remained Americans' top concerns
02:33 as the 2024 presidential race picks up steam.
02:36 [BLANK_AUDIO]