President Joe Biden's planned visit to Michigan to join the picket line amid the United Auto Workers strike raised plenty of questions in Monday's White House briefing, but Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre struggled to make sense of the situation and whether President Biden's decision to stand with union workers meant he actually stood with them in their current dispute with automakers.
On Tuesday, Biden will visit the striking UAW members at the union's invitation, something Jean-Pierre said was a "historic visit" but "absolutely not" (wink) spurred by former President Donald Trump's earlier announcement that he would visit the picket lines later this week.
"This is something, well, the president is a union guy," Jean-Pierre said. "He wears that very proudly."
Claiming that Biden "made public announcements" about the contract dispute between UAW members and auto companies before the strike began, Jean-Pierre conveniently forgot that Biden said "I don't think it's going to happen" and that he was "not worried about a strike" days before it began.
But when reporters pressed Jean-Pierre on what Biden's visit to the picket lines in Michigan meant, she couldn't come up with a clear answer.
"Isn't the president explicitly taking the side of the union workers as opposed to the companies?" was one query to which Jean-Pierre didn't give a clear answer. "He believes that there is an opportunity here" for a "win-win" agreement, she answered.
If Biden is picketing with the autoworkers, "does that mean he supports the 40 percent pay increase and 32-hour workweek?" came another question, but Jean-Pierre refused to get into the "details" and again repeated Biden's support for the UAW members, but maybe not what those union workers are demanding?
"What we're saying is we're not going to get into the negotiation," Jean-Pierre said, trying to avoid answering whether Biden supports the union's stated demands. "We're not going to litigate the specifics," she added, apparently trying to show there's a difference between standing with striking autoworkers on the picket line and actually standing with the autoworkers in their cause.
That is, it's just a photo-op for Biden, not actually about supporting UAW workers' demands.
When pressed even more about her confusing statements, Jean-Pierre again refused to say that Biden was actually standing with the workers, only saying the White House would "never get into the specifics of negotiations" which are "something for the parties to decide on."
Yet again pressed on the contradiction between Biden saying he stands with unions but not really with the unions, Jean-Pierre would only go so far as to say the president is "standing with them to make sure they get a fair share."
REPORTER: "It seems like by going to stand with workers at a picket line, the president is literally standing with them in the terms that they're seeking!"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 25, 2023
JEAN-PIERRE: "He is standing with them to make sure that they get a fair share. That is what he's standing with them on. He… pic.twitter.com/cFrg5p3aKc
That too, however, is a vague excuse of an answer that prevents her actually saying Biden supports the UAW demands.
After apparently losing even the reporters in the briefing room, one of whom pointed out that her answers were "confusing," Jean-Pierre rejected such a notion.
"It is not confusing," she insisted. Biden "stands with union workers," she insisted, "and that is what he is doing."
What Jean-Pierre's answers betrayed is a seeming lack of outright support for unions from the supposed most pro-union president in history. In much the same way Biden claimed to be a champion for unions during negotiations with rail worker unions — only to have the deal fall apart leading Biden to beg Congress to force a contract on the unions whose workers had rejected it — Biden is not actually a hero for union labor. He says the right thing, but when pressed on whether Biden actually stands with unions, he's demonstrated an unwillingness to actually back organized labor.