ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA – Ahead of Vice President Pence’s visit to Duluth, Minnesota Friday, DFL Party leaders held a press call slamming the Trump admin’s failed response to the coronavirus pandemic, his divisive rhetoric, and the harmful impacts of his policies on Minnesotans. Featured on the call were DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin, General President of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers Joseph Sellers, Duluth Mayor Emily Larson, North East Area Labor Council President Alan Netland, nurse Chris Rubesch, and Duluth resident Beth McCuskey.
Excerpts from the call:
Joseph Sellers, General President of Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers: “[The Trump administration] doesn’t feel the way we do. They can’t understand it. They can’t relate to the issues that we experience as working families. Joe Biden does. We at SMART call Vice President Biden, ‘Blue Collar Biden,’ why? Because he does. He understands workers. He understands working issues. He understands working family issues, and he can relate to us. Our country is not a company where the mantra is, ‘You’re fired, and you’re fired and you’re fired.’ This administration’s cavalier attitude has collapsed our economy for the 22nd time, more than a million unemployment insurance claims were filed. This administration is disconnected from the pain and the suffering of workers.”
Emily Larson, Mayor of Duluth: “The Trump administration is one of chaos. They breed it, they incite it, they create it on purpose so that they can kind of gently drop in some kind of half-hearted lip service solution. It’s not working. We see through it. It is not fair. It is not right. It is putting people in the middle. One of the things that I have found to be incredibly accurate for the way that I experienced the service and leadership of President Trump and Vice President Pence is how they have responded to the coronavirus. I 100 percent understand that as a leader we do not ask for the conditions under which we serve. We are provided with a variety of variables that we cannot control, but what I do know is that in a crisis, leadership either shines or it hides. And what we find, time and again, is an absolving of all responsibility. Nobody in the United States has created this pandemic, but nobody is taking the responsibility on the national level that they need to. And that starts with the White House….So while we will ensure we have a very safe visit for Vice President Pence today, I absolutely do not and will not support a platform that does not put people first.”
North East Area Labor Council President Alan Netland: “Look at the disaster that happened by the ignorance of this President and Vice President, ignoring and putting their head in the sand and dealing with this health crisis. It affects people’s lives. Look at the city of Duluth. We lost the paper plant recently, Versa. Part of the reason is that they make glossy paper for advertisers. There’s no advertising going for retailers because the economy is shot. We have hospitality workers who are without work because you can’t have indoor seating very much and all that kind of thing. We don’t get the circumstances that we might always want, but we deal with what’s in front of us. The President has ignored the needs of the people by ignoring this crisis. It has affected people’s lives and has harmed families and we just cannot continue with that.”
Nurse Chris Rubesch: “We are in desperate need of a president and an administration that is ready to take immediate action to address these health inequities. We need a president and an administration who’s ready to support the health of all Americans, a president who knows that last year, 1.2 billion — with a B — prescriptions were delivered by the United States Postal Service, mostly to Americans who live in rural communities who don’t have access to pharmacies and who desperately need those services, and a president who understands that we need to put patients before profits…We need a president and an administration who is ready to address workplace safety for not only health care workers, but for all workers. As a board member of our state union, I get the email every week that lists the names of health care workers from across our country who have died, serving their patients and their communities, and it is absolutely heartbreaking. And we can stop this right now if OSHA were to roll out strong, universal personal protective equipment standards, and that’s what we need. And I know that the Biden-Harris administration will be ready to do that.”
Duluth resident Beth McCuskey: “Our health care [workers] don’t have PPE like they need. Our schools don’t have it. Our teachers have families that they don’t want to bring this disease home to. They’re stressed. They have kids that are going to school or they have grandchildren or they have underlying conditions. And it’s just so heartbreaking. As it was said, it didn’t have to be this way. Then to top it off, we have the Postal Service being decimated. And that’s where a lot of our seniors and rurals get their medicines from. It’s not all about voting. It’s about communicating. Those postal services are the center of the community in some places. It’s where they go to get their mail because it might not be delivered, or they go to get their stamps because it’s where they connect with their community. And we are hurting our rural communities, our veterans, our seniors, because that’s where they get their medicines from….When I look at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, I see a pair that has empathy. I see a pair that has leadership in wanting to heal our country.”