The Washington Examiner, November 2024
President Joe Biden‘s first public appearance since he called former President Donald Trump‘s supporters “garbage” was before a friendly crowd in Pennsylvania. In a Philadelphia union hall Friday, Biden, who this week caused political problems for Vice President Kamala Harris‘s campaign to succeed him in the White House, tried to make amends with one of the commonwealth’s key constituencies, labor workers, before next week’s election.
Biden repeatedly mentioned Harris’s name as he underscored the importance of American Rescue Plan’s Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Relief Act, which protected the pensions of 1.2 million union workers, according to a new Department of Labor report. That includes 29,000 United Food and Commercial Workers International Union workers and retirees, primarily in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. Biden also took the opportunity to present a citizen’s medal to Lewis’s widow, Rita Lewis. Butch Lewis, retired head of Teamsters Local 100 in Evendale, Ohio, died in 2016.
