DNC War Room on “the Most Anti-Worker and Anti-Union Ticket in American History”; “GOP Propping Up Stein and West In Key States”

“Donald Trump and JD Vance have been absent from the campaign trail this Labor Day weekend because they know their anti-worker agenda is extreme, unpopular, and would devastate America’s working class. The Trump-Vance Project 2025 playbook would make it harder for workers to form unions and gut overtime pay – all while raising taxes on the middle class and rigging the economy for billionaires and big corporations. Americans are fired up to elect Vice President Harris and former union member Governor Walz because they are champions for labor who will stop the most anti-union ticket in American history.”

Donald Trump was one of the most anti-worker and anti-union presidents in American history – and his running mate JD Vance stands firmly against working people and has opposed legislation to protect unions.

Politico: “Vance has consistently opposed the PRO Act, the ‘holy grail of pro-union labor reform’ that organized labor and its allies on the Hill have been fighting for over two years to get passed. … Vance’s skepticism of the PRO Act is part of a more fundamental skepticism that he harbors toward organized labor.”

Fast Company: “Vance also voted in favor of a resolution to strike down the NLRB’s updated joint-employer rule, which would have given workers more leverage when organizing at companies—like Amazon—that rely heavily on third-party contractors, by forcing both employers to participate in labor negotiations.”

Trump: “I know the unions. They’re dues-sucking people. They just want their dues and they couldn’t care less.”

New York Times: “Does [Trump] support unions? He has had ‘great success’ in New York building with unions and also in Florida without unions. ‘If I had my choice,’ he said, ‘I think I’d take it without.’”

Associated Press: “During Trump’s presidency, the National Labor Relations Board reversed several key rulings that made it easier for small unions to organize, strengthened the bargaining rights of franchise workers and provided protection against anti-union measures for employees.

“The Supreme Court’s conservative majority — including three justices that Trump nominated — overturned a decades-old pro-union decision in 2018 involving fees paid by government workers. The justices in 2021 rejected a California regulation giving unions access to farm property so they could organize workers.”

Trump recently celebrated firing striking workers, and Vance shamelessly defended his comments.

Newsweek: “Donald Trump Cheers Elon Musk Over Firing Workers: ‘You’re the Greatest!’”

Politico: “Vice presidential candidate JD Vance defended Donald Trump’s comments about firing striking workers during a rally in Michigan.”

New Republic: “J.D. Vance Makes Huge Mistake Trying to Defend Trump’s Workers Comment”

Trump has repeatedly broken his promises to workers across the country.

CNN: “Trump told GM workers he could save their plant, but it’s gone for good”

Washington Post: “Trump promised this Wisconsin town a manufacturing boom. It never arrived.”

Fox Business: “Electric truck company touted by Trump as ‘an incredible concept’ files for bankruptcy”

Detroit Free Press: “Trump, tweets couldn’t save U.S. auto jobs in 2017”

“In March 2017, [Trump] praised General Motors when he flew to Detroit to highlight the importance of American manufacturing. That same day, GM announced plans for 900 new or retained jobs in Michigan within 12 months. This week, GM confirmed a net loss of 3,500 hourly manufacturing jobs in 2017.”

MLive: “On the 2016 campaign trail in Warren, Trump pledged ‘you won’t lose one plant’ if he were elected. GM announced last year it would end production at five North American plants.”

New York Times: “After Years of Growth, Automakers Are Cutting U.S. Jobs”

Wall Street Journal: “President Trump’s trade war against China didn’t achieve the central objective of reversing a U.S. decline in manufacturing, economic data show, despite tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods to discourage imports.”

The Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda would raise taxes for the middle class while gifting tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and threatening to supercharge inflation.

Center for American Progress: “Project 2025’s Tax Plan Would Raise Taxes on the Middle Class and Cut Taxes for the Wealthy”

“In [Project 2025], far-right extremist plans are outlined that raise taxes on low- and middle-income households to finance tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations. Project 2025’s tax plan includes an ‘intermediate tax reform’ that includes changes to tax brackets and corporate tax cuts that would shift the tax burden toward middle-income households …

“The shift toward a flat consumption tax while eliminating income taxes would lead to an average $5,900 tax increase for the middle 20 percent of households and an average $2 million tax cut for the top 0.1 percent. … Project 2025 does not stop at cutting taxes for wealthy individuals; it also proposes an array of tax cuts for corporations. … This would amount to a $24 billion tax cut for the Fortune 100, the 100 largest companies in America.”

CBS News: “Millions of low- and middle-class households would likely face significantly higher taxes under the Project 2025’s proposals.”

New York Times: “Senator JD Vance of Ohio, former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate, denied in an interview with NBC News on Sunday that tariffs had caused higher costs for Americans, as economists have documented.”

Vance on Trump’s plan that would raise tariffs and raise costs for hardworking Americans: “This is a fascinating proposal and we could talk for a while about it.”

Project 2025: “The corporate income tax rate should be reduced to 18 percent.”

Vance: “I’ve reviewed a lot of [Project 2025]. There are some good ideas in there.”

Axios: “Sixteen Nobel prize-winning economists are jumping into the presidential campaign with a stark warning: Former President Trump’s plans would reignite inflation and cause lasting harm to the global economy if he wins in November.”

Wall Street Journal: “A drumbeat of reports from Wall Street economists have warned that Trump’s plans could substantially slow economic growth while driving up consumer prices.”

The Atlantic: “Trump’s Plan to Supercharge Inflation”

Washington Post: “Trump and his advisers have discussed deeper cuts to both individual and corporate tax rates that would build on his controversial 2017 tax law … Further cutting corporate taxes … would primarily benefit large firms.”

Trump’s failed economic agenda resulted in broken promises, a skyrocketing deficit, and new incentives for companies to ship jobs overseas.

Vance: “The left attacked Donald Trump for those tax cuts said they would make the deficit worse when in reality we took in more revenue because the government got out of the way on the regulatory side and the tax cuts spurred a lot of growth which means more people working, which meant more economic production which meant the entire economy was healthier … I think we have a pretty common sense regulatory and tax agenda.”

New York Times: “The 2017 corporate tax cuts signed into law by Mr. Trump have not increased government revenue … In fact, they have had the opposite effect.”

Washington Post: “Trump promised this Wisconsin town a manufacturing boom. It never arrived.”

The Guardian: “Donald Trump’s $1.5tn tax cuts have helped billionaires pay a lower rate than the working class for the first time in history.”

CBS News: “Two years after Trump tax cuts, middle-class Americans are falling behind”

Washington Post Analysis: “One of President Donald Trump’s lesser-known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt. The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. … The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration.”

Washington Post: “Trump promised ‘America First’ would keep jobs here. But the tax plan might push them overseas.”

This follows recent reporting from USA Today that a Republican-aligned canvassing firm, Blair Group Consulting, helped West gather signatures in Wisconsin.

Associated Press: GOP network props up liberal third-party candidates in key states, hoping to siphon off Harris votes

By: Brian Slodysko and Dan Merica

• Across the country, a network of Republican political operatives, lawyers and their allies is trying to shape November’s election in ways that favor former President Donald Trump. Their goal is to prop up third-party candidates such as West who offer liberal voters an alternative that could siphon away support from Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
• Trump has offered praise for West, calling him “one of my favorite candidates.” Another is Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Trump favors both for the same reason. “I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them. He takes 100%.”
• One key figure in the push is Paul Hamrick […] Hamrick serves as counsel for the Virginia-based nonprofit People Over Party, which has pushed to get West on the ballot in Arizona, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as North Carolina, records show.
• […] Hamrick voted in Alabama’s Republican primary in 2002, 2006 and 2010, according to state voting records maintained by the political data firm L2. He was tapped briefly in 2011 to work for the Alabama state Senate’s Republican majority. And since 2015, according to federal campaign finance disclosures, he has contributed only to GOP causes […]
• For years, he was a consultant for Matrix LLC, […] Matrix LLC was part of an effort in Florida to run “ghost candidates” against elected officials who had raised the ire of executives for Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest utility.
• Daniella Levine Cava, the current mayor of Miami-Dade County, was a target. As a county commissioner, Levine Cava had fought with FPL. When she ran for reelection in 2018, Matrix covertly financed a third-party candidate they hoped would siphon enough votes to tip her seat to a Republican challenger, The Miami Herald reported in 2022.
• Hamrick was deeply involved. A company he created paid the spoiler candidate a $60,000 salary and rented a $2,300-a-month home for him, according to the newspaper and business filings made in Alabama.
• Now Hamrick is playing a prominent role to place West’s name on the ballot in competitive states. Hamrick surfaced in Arizona two weeks ago after a woman told the AP that a document was fraudulently submitted in her name to Arizona’s secretary of state in which she purportedly agreed to serve as an elector for West. She said her signature was forged and she never agreed to be an elector.
• After the AP published her account, Hamrick said he spoke to the woman’s husband, trying to rectify the situation and “gave some information.” Hamrick declined to say what information was shared. He also tried to persuade another elector who backed out to recommit to West, according to interviews and voicemails.
• The next day, with the deadline to qualify for the Arizona ballot just hours away, Brett Johnson, a prominent Republican lawyer, and Amanda Reeve, a former GOP state lawmaker, made house visits to each as they tried to persuade both to sign new paperwork to serve as West electors.
• Johnson and Reeve work for Snell & Wilmer, which has done $257,000 worth of business for the Republican National Committee over the past two years, campaign finance disclosures show.
• In Georgia, Bryan Tyson, a partner at the Election Law Group, represented the state Republican Party as it tried to keep West on the ballot. The firm has collected $60,000 in payments from the RNC since April, campaign finance records show.
• In North Carolina, Phil Strach, a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association, successfully challenged in court a North Carolina State Board of Elections decision to bar West from the ballot.
• In Michigan, John Bursch, a senior lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative legal group that helped overturn Roe v. Wade, successfully fended off a challenge to West’s placement on the ballot. Bursch’s firm, Bursch Law PLLC, was paid $25,000 by Trump’s campaign in November 2020 for “RECOUNT: LEGAL CONSULTING,” according to campaign finance disclosures.
• In Pennsylvania, a lawyer with long-standing ties to Republican candidates and causes, unsuccessfully argued in August for West to stay on the ballot. […] People Over Party, the group Hamrick is affiliated with, had tried to get West on the ballot. None of these actions was funded by West’s campaign, though he and his “Justice for All” party have coordinated at times with Hamrick’s People Over Party, according to legal filings, a news release and social media posts.
• In North Carolina, People Over Party, worked with Blitz Canvassing and Campaign & Petition Management — two firms that routinely work for the GOP — to gather signatures for West.
• In Wisconsin, Blair Group Consulting oversaw West’s petition signature drive to qualify for the ballot, as previously reported by USA Today. David Blair, the firm’s president, was the national director of Youth for Trump during the 2016 campaign and was a spokesman in the Trump administration.
• Mark Jacoby, whose signature gathering firm Let the Voters Decide often works for Republicans, was involved in the failed Arizona push to get West on the ballot. The California operative was convicted in 2009 of voter registration fraud, court records show.
• Jefferson Thomas, a longtime Republican operative from Colorado, submitted petition signatures that his firm, The Synapse Group, gathered on behalf of Stein in New Hampshire, records show.