Speaking to former Fox News Channel personality and current podcast host Tucker Carlson on a Monday, December 23 broadcast of “The Tucker Carlson Show,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien told Tuck how Vice President and 2024 Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris turned her back on his union, leading to his group deciding against endorsing her for president.
As background, the Teamsters are one of the largest labor unions in the United States and have endorsed a presidential candidate since 1996, and are widely regarded as being a pro-Democrat union, as most are. However, in a shocking move made in September of 2024, the Teamsters decided against endorsing a candidate, a tacit rejection of Kamala Harris.
Speaking on “The Tucker Carlson Show,” Mr. O’Brien commented on why they declined endorsing her, noting how poorly Kamala came off when she met with one of the union’s executive board members at an event after President Joe Biden dropped out and she became the Democratic Presidential nominee for 2024.
He said, noting how arrogant Kamala was, “They’re going through the line to get the picture, and Joan introduces herself to Vice President Harris [and] says, ‘I’m Joan Corey. I’m on the general executive board for the Teamsters.’ She [Harris] goes, ‘Teamsters? You better get on board. Better get on board soon.’ Says it to my vice president.” Carlson, shocked, said, “To her face? Damn, I thought I was arrogant. That’s really arrogant!”
O’Brien wasn’t done. Adding to the horror stories, he noted that Kamala kept rudely pushing for the endorsement despite her awful behavior. Describing that, he said, “So she comes back. We have the meeting the next day. She tells me this. So I call up Marty Walsh — he wasn’t the secretary of Labor, but, you know, he was pushing hard for us to make the endorsement.”
Still not done with that, O’Brien noted how he told off one of the Kamala surrogates pushing for the endorsement, saying, “I’m like, ‘Let me ask you a question, Marty. Excuse my French. Who does this fucking lady think she is?’ If I want support from any organization I am not gonna point my finger in someone’s face and say, ‘You better get on board or else.’ But that’s the attitude of this whole party.”
Continuing, he described how a roundtable interview with her went, he said, “So she comes to the roundtable. Same format, same questions — rank-and-file members are asking her questions just like they asked every other candidate. They were trying to negotiate with us. She only wants to answer three questions. We’re like ‘There’s 16 questions here.’ She answers three of them and on the fourth question one of her operatives or one of her staff slips a note in front of me: ‘This will be the last question.’”
Noting how soon that end came, he told Tucker, “And it was 20 minutes earlier than the time that it was gonna end.” Then, noting how she responded to even the slightest bit of pushback, he said, “So, you know, you’re there trying to get our support and her declaration on the way out was, ‘I’m gonna win with you or without you.’”
Then, noting how Trump responded differently to the union, O’Brien said, “The one difference between all the candidates that came was that at the conclusion of all these roundtables we had the media set up. So after [the] conclusion of [the] meeting with Trump, I did a press conference down in the lobby of my building. Well, Donald Trump did a press conference down in the lobby of my building after he spoke. The same offer was extended to both President Biden and Vice President Harris, and they refused.”
Continuing with that point, he said, “So you’re meeting with the biggest labor organization that you want and you’ve got an opportunity for media to question you about how you felt the meeting went and what you wanted to achieve and you don’t want to speak to the media? That’s a problem. But Trump, to his credit, in our building, in our foyer, had a press conference.”
Watch him here:
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