UAW calls on Biden to do more, as its leader expresses private frustrations

The self proclaimed most “pro-union president in American history” is under fire from the leader of the most high-profile union in America.

Shawn Fain, head of the United Auto Workers, has privately expressed his frustration with Joe Biden, wanting the president and other Democratic lawmakers to come out more aggressively in support of his union, which launched a strike Friday against the so-called Big Three automakers.

Fain’s frustration was conveyed by five people familiar with his thinking, who were granted anonymity to describe his position. One of those five described him as “not happy” with the situation. And Fain’s not the only person in Michigan who isn’t thrilled with the way Biden and his team have handled the labor dispute.

Fain was also set to put out remarks, which were exclusively obtained by POLITICO, calling on Biden to get involved.

"We agree with Joe Biden when he says ‘record profits mean record contracts.’ We don’t agree when he says negotiations have broken down. Our national elected negotiators and UAW leadership are hard at work at the bargaining table. Our members and allies are standing strong at the picket lines. Anyone who wants to stand with us can grab a sign and hold the line,” he said, as part of a larger statement.

“The companies and the media want to use fear tactics about how we’re going to wreck the economy. We’re not going to wreck the economy. The truth is we are going to wreck the billionaire economy. Working people are not afraid. You know who’s afraid? The corporate media is afraid. The White House is afraid. The companies are afraid."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement.

Fain has made positive comments about Biden in the past, saying in August that “we appreciate President Biden’s support for strong contracts that ensure good-paying union jobs” and applauding the administration for “doing its part to reject the false choice between a good job and a green job.”

But the mounting discontent with the administration comes at a delicate time: with the UAW embarking on a walkout that will hit three major U.S. car companies at once. It’s a move aimed at maximizing the union’s negotiating leverage, but one that also threatens to saddle Biden with fresh economic challenges. The union is starting by striking at three plants, but said it will add more if needed as talks drag on.

White House aides spent the last several weeks in close contact with both union leaders and carmaker executives in hopes of brokering a “win-win” deal and avoiding a strike, engaging both parties but being careful not to intervene. Many lawmakers saw that position as reasonable given the economic consequences of such a shutdown. But now that the strike is in motion, the union and its progressive supporters believe Biden needs to play a more assertive role in rallying the public to the workers’ side.

There is also a sense among some Democrats and labor officials that Biden’s team miscalculated the standoff and hasn’t understood the severity of labor’s frustration or concerns. Even the news this week that the Biden administration was considering providing aid to auto suppliers rankled some in the union world, who thought it could undermine the strike and saw it as evidence that there are always funds available for companies, but not workers.

In public remarks on Friday, Biden said that while "no one wants a strike,” he supports collective bargaining and understands “the workers’ frustration.” He stopped short of backing the walkout and argued that the companies have made significant offers.

“I believe they should go further,” said Biden. “Record-setting profits should be shared with record-setting contracts.”

Biden also said he was dispatching acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and White House adviser Gene Sperling, who has been his point person on talks between the UAW and the Big 3, to Detroit to support both sides. On Thursday, Biden talked privately with both Fain and the automaker CEOs.

Biden's speech on Friday won applause from some progressives for offering a measure of support for the autoworkers' position. Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said in a text on his way to the picket line that it was notable the president appeared to characterize the need for the companies' record profits to translate into a record contract for their workers.

Biden has staked his reelection campaign on his pro-union bonafides, a green energy revolution, and the health of the American economy. Both the strike and the discontent of UAW, a powerful union headquartered in the critical battleground state of Michigan, threatens to put a dent in all of his priorities. Fain announced earlier this year the union was holding off on endorsing Biden, whose administration he has criticized for giving out billions in clean-energy subsidies without demanding higher pay and more protections for workers.

Jennifer Haberkorn and Eugene Daniels contributed to this report.

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'They did it to me': Trump says Biden impeachment inquiry might be motivated by revenge

Former President Donald Trump has “no idea” whether Republicans will vote to impeach President Joe Biden.

But he does have a theory on what motivated House Republicans to launch a Biden impeachment inquiry: revenge.

“They did it to me,” Trump told former Fox and NBC host Megyn Kelly during an hourlong interview on SiriusXM radio that aired Thursday. “And had they not done it to me, I think, and nobody officially said this, but I think had they not done it to me … perhaps you wouldn't have it being done to them."

Democrats twice led the charge in impeaching Trump, first on charges of abusing his power and obstructing congressional investigations and later for “incitement of insurrection,” following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump was acquitted by the Senate both times.

On Tuesday, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the decision to open an impeachment inquiry into Biden over allegations of bribery and corruption. Some Republicans have said there is a lack of smoking-gun evidence linking Biden to money his son Hunter received from Ukraine and China.

In the interview with Kelly, Trump warned that attempts from the GOP to indict Biden could be next.

“This is going to happen with indictments, too,” said Trump, who is facing dozens of charges across four indictments, including two at the federal level.

“They’re fake indictments,” Trump said of his own legal challenges. “And I think you're going to see that as time goes by, you're going to see Republicans when they're in power, doing it. And it's a shame when that happens. I'm not in favor of that, but that's what's going to happen because that's human nature.”

The interview with Kelly is the first time the two have sat down publicly since 2016, after a heated exchange during a Republican presidential debate set off a long-lasting feud, fueled by remarks Trump made following the debate saying Kelly had blood “coming out of her wherever.”

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House GOP advances bill to block Biden’s student loan repayment program

House Republicans on Thursday advanced legislation to overturn President Joe Biden’s new student loan repayment program that lowers monthly payments and caps interest.

The House education committee voted 23-19, along party lines, to approve a resolution, H.J. Res. 88, that would block the new income-driven repayment plan — dubbed the SAVE plan — that was finalized by the Education Department earlier this year.

Biden officials are promoting the program as a crucial tool to help millions of Americans manage their federal student loan payments, which are set to resume in October for the first time in more than three years.

More than 4 million borrowers are enrolled in the program, according to the Education Department, and the Biden administration has launched a public outreach campaign to get more Americans to sign up.

But Republicans have blasted the new repayment plan as a backdoor loan forgiveness program that provides wasteful subsidies to millions of borrowers at taxpayers' expense.

The Biden administration estimated that its new plan would cost $156 billion over the next decade. The Congressional Budget Office previously pegged the figure at $230 billion, and outside analysts, such as Penn Wharton Budget Model, have said it could be as high as $475 billion.

GOP lawmakers are seeking to nullify the repayment plan under the Congressional Review Act, a tool that allows lawmakers to swiftly overturn recently enacted executive branch policies. It will allow Republicans to force a vote on the measure in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

A similar GOP-led effort to repeal Biden’s student debt relief program earlier this year, before the Supreme Court struck it down, passed Congress with a handful of Democratic votes, though Biden swiftly vetoed the measure.

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Wisconsin GOP votes to remove state’s elections chief

Wisconsin Republicans voted Thursday to fire the state’s elections chief just months before the battleground state’s presidential primary.

State senators voted 22-11 along party lines to fire Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, a bipartisan board that oversees election administration in the state. Wolfe’s position is a nonpartisan, non-voting one tasked with implementing the decisions made by the three Democratic and three Republican commissioners.

As the head of the commission, Wolfe has been the target of GOP attacks following the 2020 presidential election, when President Joe Biden narrowly beat former President Donald Trump in the state. Wolfe has garnered vitriol from Republicans who amplified Trump’s false claims about widespread fraud in the election. Wisconsin Republicans also took issue with how the commission handled voting during the Covid-19 pandemic, including how absentee ballots were sent to nursing homes.

“The vote today represents a lack of faith the people of Wisconsin have in Meagan Wolfe to serve as administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission,” said Republican state Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, adding that the commission should appoint an interim administrator to “rebuild the faith in Wisconsin’s elections.”

Thursday’s vote was the latest development in a monthslong partisan battle over Wolfe’s tenure, one that election officials are concerned will cause more distrust in the elections process ahead of next year’s presidential election.

It will almost certainly not be the end of the matter. Democrats say the vote to remove Wolfe was illegal because the commission had not officially sent her nomination to the legislature, and litigation is widely expected. Following the vote, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers requested that the Wisconsin Department of Justice provide “immediate representation to defend [Wolfe] so she can remain in this important role.”

“The Senate cannot simply manufacture a nomination that does not exist,” Democratic state Sen. Mark Spreitzer said on the floor Thursday. “Any vote that is taken today on this nomination has no legal force and is not properly before the Senate, and I’m sure it’s likely to be litigated later.”

The fight is throwing the major swing state into uncertainty ahead of its April 2 presidential primary. Wisconsin was one of the many states Trump, now the frontrunner of the 2024 GOP presidential primary field, sued following his 2020 loss, pointing to unfounded claims of election fraud.

Typically, at the end of the WEC administrator’s term, a majority of the bipartisan board must either nominate the administrator for another term or nominate a replacement. The state Senate then votes on that nomination.

But Wolfe’s renomination process hasn’t been that simple.

Earlier this year, the three Democratic commissioners on the Wisconsin Elections Commission abstained from voting to renominate her to a second term out of fear that the Republican-controlled legislature would reject it. Democrats argued that without the four required votes to send the reappointment to the Senate, Wolfe can stay in the position as a “holdover appointee.” Her term expired July 1.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul and the legislature’s own lawyers have said the state Senate didn’t have the authority to hold the vote. But the senators went forward with it anyway.

Earlier this year, Wolfe said that it is “deeply disappointing that a small minority of lawmakers continue to misrepresent my work, the work of the agency, and that of our local election officials, especially since we have spent the last few years thoughtfully providing facts to debunk inaccurate rumors.”

The GOP-initiated battle over Wolfe is not the only one happening in the Badger State. Republican Wisconsin state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is threatening to impeach newly elected liberal state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz.

Wisconsin Republicans have demanded Protasiewicz recuse herself from redistricting cases that come before the court, arguing that she prejudged the cases by calling the maps “rigged” during her campaign earlier this year. They have threatened to impeach Protasiewicz if she doesn’t recuse herself, but it’s not clear they have the grounds to do that.

Earlier this week, Vos introduced a proposal to have nonpartisan statehouse staff draw the legislative lines — although the GOP ultimately would still have some control — in an attempt to short-circuit a court case that targets the GOP-drawn map currently in use. Evers indicated on Tuesday that he would not approve such a plan, calling it “bogus,” which has renewed the GOP’s Protasiewicz impeachment calls. The Assembly is set to vote on the bill Thursday.

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Behind the scenes, Ron DeSantis is making things worse for Kevin McCarthy

In the high-stakes fight that is threatening to shut down the federal government next month — and tear House Republicans apart — Ron DeSantis is taking sides.

The Florida governor spent about 30 minutes on the phone Wednesday with conservative Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Bob Good of Virginia — leaders of the cadre that is pushing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to embrace a shutdown if Democrats won't agree to hard-right policy demands.

DeSantis' message, according to a person familiar with the call: “I got your back. Keep fighting.”

The call is the latest signal that DeSantis is working to insert himself into the spending fight on the Hill in a bid to elevate his standing among Republican primary voters.

"Ron DeSantis knows that both parties — including the current and previous administration — are to blame for Washington's reckless spending spree," said DeSantis campaign spokesperson Andrew Romeo. "He is urging congressional Republicans to hold the line in this current spending standoff and end days of rubber stamping multi-trillion dollar spending bills that harm the American people."

DeSantis spent three terms in the House and is a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, the hard-line group that is pushing McCarthy to fight harder against Democrats on spending and other members — and threatening his gavel if he doesn't.

Still, it's notable DeSantis is associating himself with McCarthy's internal foes as tensions inside the House GOP reach a boiling point. Inside a closed-door conference meeting Thursday, McCarthy exploded at his critics.

“If you think you scare me because you want to file a motion to vacate, move the fucking motion,” he said, referring to the ouster maneuver that has been discussed by Good and other lawmakers.

The person who described the phone call did so on the condition of anonymity. A spokesperson for Roy, who has served as an informal leader of the conservative splinter group, declined to comment. A spokesperson for McCarthy did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on DeSantis' role.

In other recent signs of his interest in the spending fight, DeSantis released a video knocking the “D.C. establishment” for spending too much. And in an interview with CBS’ Norah O’Donnell, he blamed both Democrats and Republicans for overspending.

DeSantis has shown much more attention to the spending clash than the GOP presidential frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, who has generally left McCarthy alone to handle fiscal matters.

Trump has recently been more interested in another aspect of internal House GOP politics — the push to impeach President Joe Biden, which was formalized by McCarthy on Tuesday after months of pressure from Trump and his allies.

Rachael Bade and Olivia Beavers contributed to this report.

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George W. Bush wades into PEPFAR fight as deadline nears

House and Senate Republicans are working on a last-ditch effort to save a global HIV-AIDS program set to expire Sept. 30 — defying influential anti-abortion and conservative groups that are lobbying against its renewal.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which oversees the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, told POLITICO that he’s working on a bill to extend the program, though it may fall short of the standard five-year extension and include some new language to mollify anti-abortion groups.

McCaul said he recently had lunch in Kennebunkport, Maine, with former President George W. Bush and their two wives and discussed the law’s fate. Congressional staff and advocates supporting the law known as PEPFAR said it’s part of a push by the 43rd president to defend the program he helped create in 2003 and that’s credited with saving 25 million lives.

“He wants to come in at the right time,” McCaul said Tuesday about Bush’s involvement. “This is one of his biggest legacies.”

On Wednesday, the former president published an op-ed asking Congress to reauthorize PEPFAR for five more years “without delay,” saying that failing to do so would be “a source of national shame.”

Bush’s entry into the fight underscores the growing concern from members in both parties that PEPFAR, which enjoyed two decades of strong bipartisan support, will fall victim to abortion politics.

Reauthorization is currently in jeopardy as some Republicans and conservative advocacy groups allege that part of the program’s nearly $7 billion annual budget flows to abortion providers — a claim Bush, President Joe Biden's administration, program leaders and outside experts deny.

A health advocate familiar with the effort to re-up the law but not authorized to speak on the record said the former president has also reached out to other GOP members “very on the [down-low].”

A senior Senate Democratic aide involved with the negotiations said Bush’s outreach on PEPFAR is a result of “a multitude of former and current members of Congress and faith leaders asking him to get into the game.”

The former president did not respond to a request for comment.

Bush allies and surrogates have also rallied to the cause. David Kramer, the head of the George W. Bush Institute, recently called Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Congress’ most vocal opponent of reauthorizing PEPFAR.

Smith said that Kramer failed to change his mind and that he responded to Kramer: “Why isn’t Bush calling Biden and asking him to stop hijacking his noble program?”

A spokesperson for the George W. Bush Institute told POLITICO it had nothing to add.

With just two weeks left before PEPFAR’s authorization expires, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is working with Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on a three-year reauthorization bill.

“It’s been a program that works,” Graham said Tuesday. “I’m willing to make changes if it makes sense, but I want to get it reauthorized.”

While the program will continue to be funded even if it is not reauthorized by the end of the month, supporters say that without a long-term commitment, groups fighting HIV and AIDS around the world will struggle to hire staff and launch long-term projects.

That fear has sparked a lobbying blitz with several former Republican lawmakers jumping into the fray.

Along with former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee — an architect of PEPFAR two decades ago — former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum confirmed that he has also called lawmakers “to help find a path forward which will continue long-term funding for PEPFAR.”

“This [is] one of the few significant bipartisan programs in a policy area that is rife with disagreements and distrust,” he said in a statement.

The push by these former GOP leaders, all of them staunch opponents of abortion while in office, defies the efforts of influential anti-abortion and conservative advocacy groups that have demanded Congress not renew PEPFAR unless restrictions are imposed to block any organization receiving U.S. funds from using other sources of money to provide abortions or discuss them.

Those groups — including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the Heritage Foundation — have joined with Republicans in Congress, led by Smith, to oppose the standard five-year reauthorization of PEPFAR and to push for a one-year funding patch instead.

Smith added that he, too, has lobbied House and Senate Republicans and plans to fight McCaul’s reauthorization push.

“If we were to support a three- or five-year reauthorization, we would be rubber-stamping and endorsing all of the radical changes that have been made by President Biden,” he said. “We’re ready to fight this.”

Addressing that charge, Bush wrote Wednesday that while some in his party are questioning “whether PEPFAR’s implementation under the current administration is sufficiently pro-life, … there is no program more pro-life.”

Failure to renew PEPFAR would bar Congress from increasing its nearly $7 billion yearly budget and could terminate several legal provisions in the program — including a rule that directs at least half of PEPFAR funds toward patient treatment and care. Presidential administrations could continue abiding by those rules or drop them.

The House Appropriations Committee approved a one-year funding patch this summer for PEPFAR, with new anti-abortion restrictions, as part of the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs funding bill for the 2024 fiscal year. But that bill has yet to receive a floor vote and is unlikely to become law because Democrats oppose the PEPFAR language, other anti-abortion provisions, and deep cuts to foreign aid programs.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who sponsored the bill, said he considers it a last resort for PEPFAR and prefers a reauthorization.

“I do hope that the authorizers are able to get it done so that we don't have to be doing this every single year,” he said in an interview.

McCaul said he is working toward a compromise with anti-abortion groups to have provisions in PEPFAR legislation that enforce the Helms Amendment, which prohibits the use of any U.S. foreign assistance funds for abortion as a method of family planning.

“If the outside groups are good with that sort of compromise, then I think we’d be in a good place to move forward,” McCaul said. “There’s a lot of momentum on the Republican side. But it’s not gonna be easy.”

It’s unclear what form the reauthorization would take in the House but it could hitch a ride on a continuing resolution with government funding, McCaul said.

As the Sept. 30 deadline nears, HIV activists and PEPFAR supporters are staging protests on Capitol Hill targeting Republican leadership, warning that a failure to re-up the program would signal decreasing interest from the U.S. in the global fight against HIV just as the Covid-19 pandemic reversed progress against HIV and AIDS in some regions, fueling a rise in new infections.

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Trump knocks bitter enemy Romney as the senator lays out plans to retire

Former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Wednesday to gloat after Sen. Mitt Romney announced that he would not run for reelection.

In his post, written in all-caps, Trump called the announcement “fantastic news for America, the great state of Utah, and for the Republican Party.” Trump also referenced Romney (R-Utah) as “Pierre Delecto,” an alias Romney formerly used on X, then Twitter, to like tweets criticizing Trump, among other content.

The two Republicans have long had an adversarial relationship. Romney’s moderate approach to legislating and openness to bipartisanship has frequently acted as a check on Trumpism, angering Trump and his supporters.

During Trump’s first impeachment trial, Romney was the only Republican senator who voted to convict Trump. The second time around, he was joined by six of his colleagues.

Trump made his thoughts on Romney’s Senate tenure clear in his post, writing that “he did not serve with distinction” and predicting that Romney would have faced a primary challenge had he decided to run again.

Romney's announcement marks a likely end to his lengthy official political career. Prior to entering the Senate in 2019, he won the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 and served as governor of Massachusetts.

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