Biden attacks Trump over call to boycott Goodyear, says workers are 'collateral damage'
Former VP says current president “doesn’t have a clue" about working at places like Goodyear
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden ripped President Trump on Wednesday night over his call for a boycott of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., accusing his 2020 opponent of turning workers into "collateral damage" for “another one of his political attacks.”
In a scathing statement, Biden noted that Ohio-based Goodyear employs “thousands of American workers.” The former vice president alleged that those workers “aren’t a source of pride” for Trump.
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“President Trump doesn’t have a clue about the dignity and worth that comes with good-paying union jobs at places like Goodyear — jobs that can support a family and sustain a community,” Biden said in a statement. “And even after 170,000 have died due to his mismanaged response to this pandemic, President Trump still keeps taking his eyes off the ball, getting distracted by petty political grievances instead of doing his job and stopping the virus.”
Biden spoke out hours after Trump called on supporters to boycott Goodyear. A local news station in Kansas shared a slide of a presentation captured by an employee at a plant in Topeka that showed a list of acceptable and unacceptable phrases under Goodyear’s “zero-tolerance policy.”
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The slide listed “Black Lives Matter” and “LGBT” under acceptable phrases, while the Trump slogan “Make America Great Again” and the pro-police slogan “Blue Lives Matter” were listed under unacceptable phrases.
“Here’s the deal: when I’m President, we’re going to make made-in-America real again,” Biden added. “We’re going to stand up to unfair competition, just like we did with Chinese tires in the Obama-Biden Administration, and we’re going to make major investments in American manufacturing and innovation so our factories and our workers can outcompete the world for generations to come.”
Trump doubled down on his anti-Goodyear stance during a White House press briefing on Wednesday afternoon.
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“When they say that you can’t have Blue Lives Matter, you can’t show a blue line, you can’t wear a MAGA hat, but you can have other things that are Marxist in nature, there’s something wrong with the top of Goodyear,” the president said.
Goodyear has denied that the policy came from its corporate office.
“To enable a work environment free of those, we ask that associates refrain from workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party, as well as similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues,” the company said in a statement.