• Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump are working hard to earn the support of a key voting bloc this election: union voters. While most major unions have kept up the tradition of backing Democrats by endorsing Harris, two of the country’s biggest unions — the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the International Association of Fire Fighters — opted not to endorse either candidate, citing internal divisions among their ranks. April Verrett, president of the Service Employees International Union, joins us to talk about why her union endorsed Harris, and what’s driving divisions within unions.
• And in headlines: Georgia’s Republican secretary of state says local officials are prepared to fight election misinformation, A Nevada man says he’ll sue a California county sheriff who accused him of plotting to assassinate Trump, and NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is on its way to Jupiter’s ocean moon.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Tuesday, October 15th. I’m Jane Coaston and this is What a Day. The show where we would love to compete in Hong Kong’s space out competition. Where all you have to do is just zone out without doing anything or falling asleep, staring off into the abyss for 90 consecutive minutes. Buddy, that’s just Sunday. [music break] On today’s show, the suspect found with guns and fake tickets to a rally supporting former President Donald Trump threatened to sue law enforcement because actually he loves Trump. Plus, Dems focus on the Indigenous vote in battleground states. But first, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are working hard to earn the support of a key voting bloc this election, union voters. This week, Harris is campaigning in three major swing states with strong ties to organized labor Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. During a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania on Monday, Harris reiterated her promise to fight for working families. 

[clip of Vice President Kamala Harris] I will always put the middle class and working families first. I come from the middle class and I will never forget where I come from. [applause and cheers] Never forget where I come from. Never.

Jane Coaston: And most major unions have kept up the tradition of backing Democrats by endorsing Harris. She’s earned support from the United Auto Workers, the Afl-cio, United Steelworkers, the American Federation of Teachers. The list goes on. But there are two major union endorsements she did not win. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the International Association of Firefighters. Both opted not to endorse a candidate for the White House this year, even though they both backed President Biden in 2020. During an interview with PBS, the head of the Teamsters, Sean O’Brien, said internal polls showed union members split between the two candidates. 

[clip of Sean O’Brien] The polling would suggest that people are favorable and voting for Trump just as well as they may be favorable for voting for Vice President Harris. 

Jane Coaston: A lot of local Teamsters and firefighter chapters did throw their support behind Harris. Still, despite Trump’s well-documented support for anti-union policies, polls show the former president has a shot at capturing a potentially historic share of the labor vote. A Fox News poll from last month showed Harris leading Trump among union households, but only by about six points. Biden won the bloc by low double digits four years ago. So for more on the internal divide we’re seeing among union voters, I spoke with April Verrett. She’s the president of the Service Employees International Union. It’s one of the largest unions in the United States representing nearly two million workers in the service industry. It endorsed Harris earlier this year. April, welcome to What A Day. 

April Verrett: Thank you so much for having me. 

Jane Coaston: What are some of the policies that led to your union’s endorsement of Kamala Harris? 

April Verrett: Kamala Harris has always used every lever at her disposal to stand up for working people, and we know her to be a leader who has stood with us, walked the picket lines, walked a day in the shoes of our members, visited the border to meet with immigrants and their families. And she’s done everything in her power to make life better for working people and to create the future that we all need together so that we can all thrive. 

Jane Coaston: Now, the Trump Vance ticket is clearly trying to recreate some of Trump’s successes with union workers that he had in 2016 and then some in 2020, touting that the GOP is now the party of the working class. What’s your response to that view? 

April Verrett: [laugh] I’m sorry, I just have to chuckle because it’s utterly ridiculous. If you look at the actual policies that Trump put in place, like trying to defund the National Labor Relations Board, putting corporate leaders as the heads of the NLRB, it’s laughable to me that they try to paint this picture of them being everyday men when they’ve only stood on the side of corporations and billionaires and mocked union members. Right. They talk about firing striking workers. He talked recently about firing workers rather than paying them overtime. And so if we get beyond the smoke and mirrors of this narrative that they’re trying to spin, it’s not hard to know that they’re just really kind of full of it. 

Jane Coaston: So why do you think that some big unions have declined to endorse Kamala Harris? 

April Verrett: Well, the labor movement isn’t a monolith, right? We’re not all on the left of the political spectrum. And my union, our members are 30% identified as Republican. And so we have to be able to have real conversations inside of our Democratic institution. You know, we came together and made the decision that Kamala Harris is the best choice for our union and our members. I can only assume other unions do the same thing. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I think that we see a ton of coverage of how Democrats have seen a decline in support from union workers. But it’s important to remember that the main worker demographic that Trump is popular with is white men. 

April Verrett: Mm hmm. 

Jane Coaston: While Harris maintains high levels of approval from women and people of color in the workforce. So it stands to me that, like, you know, when Trump talks about the working class, he’s talking about white dude steelworkers. And when I think about the working class, I think about baristas and waitresses and people working in the service economy. So what do you see as the driving force between this divide and the narrative that Harris can’t count on the working class vote? 

April Verrett: Well, I think the first thing that’s important to remember is that this narrative that Donald Trump and Vance and others on the right try to spin, it’s not even a dog whistle anymore. Right? I think it is a very loud bullhorn that is used to divide us by race. And more often than not, also divide us by gender, as opposed to some of us, Kamala Harris included, who talk about an economy where everyone has an opportunity to thrive. And in our union, where we represent two million service and care workers who are not the people that are thought about, when people traditionally think about labor, they think about unions. They don’t think about home care workers. They don’t think about airport support workers who push wheelchairs and handle baggage. They don’t think about janitors and security officers or nurses and medical assistance. And so I think part of it is unpacking who the working class is in this America. We no longer function strictly on a manufacturing economy. Our economy is one undergirded by our service sector. And so we have to be more inclusive and think more about the folks that actually do that work. 

Jane Coaston: How is SEIU organizing for Harris Walz in these last few weeks before Election Day? Because I know you’re probably having a ton of conversations with union voters who may be on the fence. What are you saying? 

April Verrett: As much as we support Vice President Harris and are incredibly excited about Governor Walz, they are not the reason why we want people to go out and vote for them. We are casting our votes for us, and the folks at the top of the ticket are going to be our champions to give us the opportunity that we need to build our power to fight for the future that we want to create. Whether it’s the folks that’s running for president or vice president or the House or the Senate or governor or attorney general or dogcatcher, our union is about uniting working people to elect champions for us. And so that’s what we’re saying. And I’m so super proud of our $200 million program, one of the largest in the country, that is geared toward reaching out to six million high opportunity voters, folks that don’t always get talked to. Some people refer to them as low information or infrequent. I think of us as high opportunity, right? It’s people of color. It’s first time voters. It’s young people that have been disenfranchised from elections. Right. They’re not the folks that are the first to be engaged. But we’re hitting the doors. We’ve already knocked over three million doors. We’ve talked to over four million voters. And we’re going to make sure working people make the difference in this election. 

Jane Coaston: April, thank you so much for your time. 

April Verrett: Thank you so much for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Service Employees International Union President April Verrett. We’ll get to the news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: And now the news. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of Brad Raffensperger] This year, what we’re going to do is the first time in America ever we’re going to be able to audit every single race that has been cast. 

Jane Coaston: Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger gave an interview with The Washington Post on Monday and was asked how he’s preparing to combat election misinformation this year. Here’s part of his response. 

[clip of Brad Raffensperger] So everything we’ve done is to make sure that we can improve the accuracy and also then have, you know, belts and suspenders. So no matter what people say, we’re actually going to say we’ve already checked that. 

Jane Coaston: Raffensperger was the person who Donald Trump infamously pressured to, quote, “find 11,780 votes” in order to defeat Joe Biden in Georgia during the 2020 election fraudulently. And while Raffensperger did stand up to Trump in that instance, he’s also been supportive of many of the suppressive voting policies the GOP is pushing nationwide, like voter I.D. laws and voter roll purges. Last month, the NAACP sued Raffensperger in response to his enforcement of a new Georgia law that the civil rights group alleges would disenfranchize many already marginalized voters. The Nevada man arrested in an alleged assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump has threatened to sue Riverside County, according to the Los Angeles Times. He told The Times that his lawyers are drawing up paperwork to sue over false claims made by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. The suspect, identified as Vem Miller, was arrested with two loaded guns near a Trump rally in Coachella, California, on Sunday before being released on $5,000 bail. He claims to have brought the weapons for self-defense after receiving death threats over his independent media company, The America Happens Network. Miller released a statement on his Rumble Channel, a right wing alternative to YouTube. 

[clip of Vem Miller] I’ve never been to a shooting range, and I haven’t shot these guns. 

Jane Coaston: Word to the wise. No matter your political affiliation or motivation, don’t bring guns to a presidential rally. Bad idea. To mark Indigenous Peoples Day, the Democratic National Committee announced a six figure ad campaign that will target Native voters in Arizona, North Carolina, Montana and Alaska. Most of the ads will be placed in native owned media outlets. Last week, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz spoke with tribal leaders in Arizona, and he noted that several states with significant native populations will be key to the outcome of this election. 

[clip of Tim Walz] Those are swing states that will make a difference. Those are important states, and they’re states that have important Indigenous populations and the native vote that can get out there. 

Jane Coaston: During that speech, Walz emphasized the importance of doing more than just asking for votes by also delivering on policies that help native communities. According to the climate focused news outlet Grist, federal funding for tribal nations increased by 50% under the Biden administration compared to the Trump administration. NASA launched its Europa Clipper spacecraft Monday afternoon from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Clipper will travel 1.8 billion miles to Jupiter’s moon Europa, which has a massive underground ocean, double the amount of water on earth, which NASA believes could support life. 

[clip of unnamed news reporter] Three, two, one. Ignition and liftoff. Liftoff. The [?] heavy with Europa Clipper unveiling the mysteries of an enormous ocean lurking beneath the icy crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa. 

Jane Coaston: The launch had previously been set for last week, but was delayed by Hurricane Milton. Scientists say that discovering life so far away from the sun would mean life is relatively common in the universe, which seems like the perfect time to use this platform to implore scientists about an issue I’m extremely passionate about. We should absolutely never, ever, under any circumstances, be trying to contact alien life. They don’t want to talk to us and I don’t want to talk to them. Seriously, watch any movie. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing, conspiracy theories are kind of an American tradition of sorts, like apple pie, but terrible. We’ve had conspiracy theories since the election of 1800. It was rife with false rumors that John Adams was an Illuminati mastermind. Look it up. The conspiratorial mindset is a bipartisan one because the allure of hidden information is really, really powerful. You know, who knows that? Donald Trump. Who is among the most conspiratorial people in the world. He was an OG birther and honestly, probably still is. He pushed conspiracy theories that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered by Hillary Clinton. And perhaps you’ll recall, he seems to believe he won the 2020 presidential election, which he didn’t. In fact, for someone who is actually president of the actual United States and actually had access to some of the world’s most closely held secrets, Donald Trump would have you think that he literally believes anything anyone tells him. Let’s take FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA workers are in the midst of helping folks in North Carolina and Georgia and Florida and elsewhere recover from two massive hurricanes. But according to Donald Trump, FEMA is the center of a vast conspiracy. Here’s Trump speaking at a rally in Michigan on October 3rd. 

[clip of Donald Trump] They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them. 

Jane Coaston: See, here’s the problem. That’s fucking dumb. No one stole anything from FEMA. FEMA’s operating budget actually has nothing to do with the funds used to help in disaster recovery. That money comes instead from the disaster relief fund, which is appropriated by Congress. Typically, the DRF is the first line of response to a disaster. Then the president sends a formal request for more support. No hurricane recovery money went to anything besides hurricanes. And also, non-citizens can’t vote. So all in all, everything he said was wrong. It felt familiar. 

[clip from movie Billy Madison] Mr. Madison. What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. 

Jane Coaston: Now, I don’t know if you know this, but Donald Trump says insane shit every single day so often that it tends to get kind of lost. But it shouldn’t because his conspiratorial ramblings have real world effects on real people. Because some people believe him. So while FEMA workers are doing their best to help everyday Americans dig out from not one but two natural disasters, they’re doing it under the constant threat of violence coming from not only the worst people you know on the Internet, stating that FEMA workers are trying to steal lithium from some secret mine somewhere, but from the former president of the United States. Here’s FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell in an interview with CNN. 

[clip of Deanne Criswell[ We really have just got to stop this rhetoric, because what it’s doing is it’s putting fear in the people that we’re not going to be there to help them. And I worry that they won’t register for assistance with us and get access to the critical resources that they are eligible for. 

Jane Coaston: And here’s former FEMA administrator Pete Gaynor talking with ABC. 

[clip of Pete Gaynor] It’s the trifecta here in North Carolina. It’s FEMA in town. It’s Helene. And it is, I think, the pending election. And you mix that all together with these groups that have some goal to sow mistrust in their government. And this is what you get. 

April Verrett: And here’s what can happen when some people believe Trump’s conspiratorial nonsense, people get hurt. 

[clip of unnamed news reporter 2] The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office says they arrested a man who’s accused of threatening to harm FEMA employees. 

Jane Coaston: See, here’s what gets me. Either Donald Trump is the most gullible person who has ever lived, so gullible that it is an actual wonder that he is able to maintain object permanence and not just walk into doors all day. Or he’s doing it all on purpose because he wants the people who trust him and believe in him to distrust literally everything else. Former presidents, their own memories of the past. Everything. Everything but him. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a review. Stare off into the abyss and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just fun books about the election of 1800 like cool people who are also me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston. And support union workers. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded by Jerik Centeno and mixed by Bill Lancz. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Tyler Hill, JoHanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. 

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