LATROBE, Pennsylvania — President Trump unveiled a union endorsement as he promised to protect blue-collar jobs in a campaign speech in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania.
He railed against Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s ambivalent stance on fracking and claimed his opponent’s embrace of green energy policies could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state.
Both candidates are laser-focused on Pennsylvania, which Trump won by about 44,000 votes in 2016 by flipping some of the counties in the central and western areas of the state.
Trump arrived in Latrobe, close to Pittsburgh, on Thursday evening to deliver a speech in front of hundreds of supporters crowded into an airport hangar.
He paraded his blue-collar credentials with the endorsement of the Boilermakers Local 154 union, which has 1,500 members.
“They work hard, they do great,” he said. “We really put them back to work because this state was in real trouble.”
Earlier, John Hughes, business manager for Boilermakers Local 154, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, praised Trump’s effort to cut regulation in the fossil fuel industries and promote American energy production.
“My members and their families are dependent on these industries, and it is imperative that we continue to develop new opportunities and energy infrastructure in America,” he said.
In a typically free-ranging speech, Trump laid out his familiar attacks on Democrats, accusing them of drifting to the left and being weak on protecting American statues and monuments, before claiming Biden would “appease” domestic terrorists.
“This election is about safety, and this election is about jobs,” he said, pivoting to his main theme, followed by an attack on Biden and his 47 years “betraying” the American people and Pennsylvania workers with lopsided trade deals, supporting China’s entry into the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“Joe Biden’s agenda is made in China. My agenda is made in America,” he said to the loudest cheers of the night.
“After years and years of rebuilding other countries, we are finally rebuilding our country. It’s called America first.”
Trump and his team have been frequent visitors to a state that helped deliver his against-the-odds victory in 2016.
Two days earlier, Vice President Mike Pence visited a construction company close to Biden’s hometown of Scranton.
“I know we’re not too far from our opponent’s boyhood home, but it’s Trump country now,” he said.
