A major labor union leader, Teamsters president James Hoffa, is not backing down from comments he made shortly before President Barack Obama’s Labor Day speech that called on union workers to “take these sons of bitches out,” referring to members of the Tea Party and Republicans. Hoffa tells Talking Points Memo that he has “no regrets” about his remarks yesterday in Detroit at the Obama event.

ABC’s Jake Tapper pressed White House press secretary Jay Carney on whether Hoffa’s remarks were appropriate, particularly given the fact that Obama himself urged the country to “make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds” after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords last January.