Vice President Joe Biden lashed out at Donald Trump Wednesday for being out of touch with working Americans during a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Ohio.
Biden, appealing to a crowd gathered at a United Auto Workers hall in Warren, Ohio, slammed the Republican presidential nominee for not understanding the struggles faced by middle class America, particularly those employed by the automobile industry.
“I’m so sick and tired — I know I’m not supposed to get angry, but I’m so sick and tired of hearing people like Trump and the Chamber of Commerce, the National Chamber, talking about we get paid too much,” Biden said to applause. “Give me a break. Give me a break. This is a guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth that now he’s choking on because his foot is in his mouth along with a spoon.”
Biden, a powerful surrogate for Clinton in Rust Belt battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, continued to lay out his argument against Trump’s presidential candidacy that he first presented at the Democratic National Convention in July.
“Folks, we all come from the same neighborhood, the folks in here, whether it’s Youngstown, Scranton, Toledo, Pittsburgh,” Biden said. “And this other guy (Trump), he simply — he’s not a bad guy — he doesn’t understand this anymore than you understand what it’s like to live in a 30,000 square foot penthouse 80 floors up in New York.”
But Biden — in a follow up campaign trail appearance after a joint rally with Clinton in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, last month — acknowledged how some union members were “mad” with the Democratic presidential candidate.
In response, he said Clinton had a record of supporting unions and would tirelessly fight on their behalf in contrast to her opponent.
” ‘You’re fired,’ a phrase he’s (Trump) made famous, ‘You’re fired,’ ” Biden said. “You ought to come to a household where some people were fired, where the plant closed down, where all of a sudden they’re staring at the ceiling, wondering how in God’s name am I going to make it? A guy who says, and he means it, ‘American workers make too much money.’ All kidding aside, I mean I’m being deadly earnest here, this part’s not the campaign speech, man. This is about the character of the person we’re talking about electing as president of the United States.”
Biden will appear at another United Auto Workers event in Parma, Ohio, later Wednesday.
