Team Trump takes credit for prompting Biden's 'cheap photo op' trip to Michigan

Former President Donald Trump's campaign is taking credit for prompting President Joe Biden's trip to Michigan to visit striking auto workers, contending that the president's move is merely an effort to get ahead of his Republican rival on the matter.

Trump, for his part, previously announced that he would skip next weeks' Republican primary debate and instead travel to Detroit to speak to striking auto workers. Trump's visit is slated for Wednesday, Sept. 27. Biden announced Friday that he would visit the Wolverine State on Tuesday.

"Joe Biden’s trip to Michigan is nothing more than a cheap photo op as he finds himself between a rock and a political hard place," said Trump campaign Senior Advisor Jason Miller. "The only reason Biden is going to Michigan on Tuesday is because President Trump announced he is going on Wednesday. If President Trump had said nothing, Biden would be giving UAW workers in Michigan 'the East Palestine treatment.'"

Miller's reference to East Palestine hearkens back to a major train derailment earlier this year that saw hazardous materials leak from the railcars and force an evacuation of the Ohio town. While former President Donald Trump visited the town and provided some relief supplies to residents, Biden never arrived.

Miller went on to assert that Biden's nominal solidarity with the United Auto Workers amounted to little, insisting his own policies were working to undermine their economic position.

"Biden is still hell-bent on destroying all of the auto jobs he’s purporting to care about. His visit on Tuesday is completely meaningless unless he withdraws his Insane EV Mandate and rebukes his Green New Deal, which Biden will never do because he's beholden to the Radical Left Eco-Loons in California," Miller said. "Joe Biden cares more about his extremist liberal base than he does about auto workers in Michigan or anywhere else in the United States."

Trump has offered his own harsh words for the Biden administration on the EV mandate and called on union leaders to demand its overturn to benefit their members.

"The only acceptable policy for UAW members should be the complete and total repeal of Biden's catastrophic EV mandate," Trump insisted earlier this month. "Union leadership must decide whether they will stand with Biden and other far-left political cronies in Washington, or whether they will stand with front-line autoworkers and President Trump."

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.