Hillary Clinton’s team found AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s tendency to praise the vice president to Clinton’s exclusion “annoying,” emails obtained from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and published by WikiLeaks revealed.
The comments were made after a Sept. 6, 2015, collection of press highlights that summarized comments Trumka had made about Clinton’s relationship with organized labor. “Trumka is asked what it would take for Labor movement to work hard for HRC and he says it all depends where she comes down on [the Trans-Pacific Partnership], and that will determine whether people will work hard for her or just vote for her.
“Trumka also says Joe Biden has been a champion for working people his entire life. Biden and HRC both would be good presidents,” the summary notes Trumka remarked. It adds that Trumka was scheduled to appear at an event with Biden, who was briefly considered a potential Democratic competitor to Clinton, the following day.
Ann O’Leary, a senior policy adviser to Clinton, was the first to voice her disapproval. “This Trumpka [sic] line about Joe Biden really annoys me whenever I hear him say it, that Biden has been fighting for working people his whole life. It implies that HRC has not.
“Is there anything we can do to get him to add something nice about HRC?” O’Leary questions, before listing a few suggestions. “If he says it and then says HRC has too, or gives an example of her fighting for the first responders after 9/11 or, something, I think it will help the perception that there is a labor record contrast between the two.”
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Labor Outreach Director Nikki Budzinski said she concurred, and said she would reach out to the AFL-CIO’s political director to ask whether Trumka could begin making more positive comments about Clinton. “I agree. He is annoying. I’d like to just call the AFLCIO and talk to Mike Podhorzer about this. Let me know if anyone disagrees.”
The beginning of the exchange included Podesta, campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri, deputy Kristina Schake, spokesman Adrienne Elrod and an unnamed individual at [email protected]. It is unclear how many of those names remained in the exchange beyond the first email, after which at least Podesta was moved to blind copy.
The emails were included in a batch of 1,193 obtained from Podesta’s personal Gmail account published by WikiLeaks on Wednesday. The website has published 7,199 of Podesta’s messages since Friday.
