Teamsters president Sean O’Brien accused then-Vice President Kamala Harris of pressuring his union for an endorsement Tuesday, recounting a tense meeting in which she allegedly said the union “better get on board.”
O’Brien spoke with The Free Press founder and editor Bari Weiss on her “Honestly” podcast about who truly represents the American working class in a shifting political landscape.
He described one off-putting encounter a Teamsters leader had with the 2024 presidential candidate in a photo op line:
“So, Joan goes in the line and Joan says, ‘I’m Joan Corey. I’m a vice president with the Teamsters Union,’ and [Harris] pointed her finger at Joan and said, ‘Teamsters better get on board,’ and so Joan says, ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Yeah, Teamsters better get on board. I don’t know why you haven’t endorsed me yet.’ So she comes back, and she tells me this, and I’m like, ‘The nerve!'”
O’Brien, who has criticized the Democratic Party in the past, went on to claim that when Harris met with the union’s executive board, which had prepared a slate of 16 questions, she only answered four questions.
“She really didn’t answer the questions, and then on the fourth question my chief of staff slides me an index card and says, ‘This is the last question. She’s not answering anymore,’ because she wanted to, like, pontificate and give her speech of why the country is the way it is, why we should endorse her.”
O’Brien paraphrased her closing as essentially telling the union leadership, “‘Listen, I’m going to win with you or without you.’”
