YES, THESE ARE CERTAINLY PRESIDENTIAL-QUALITY OPTICS IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF A DEVASTATING HURRICANE: Harris hails striking dockworkers, swipes at Trump’s record.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday embraced striking dockworkers and bashed former President Donald Trump’s labor policies in her first public comments since a work stoppage at ports across the East and Gulf Coasts began Tuesday.
She said in a statement that “foreign-owned shipping companies have made record profits” and the union workers “deserve a fair share” of that money. As tens of thousands of members of the International Longshoremen’s Association hit the picket line, Harris also sought to use the moment to draw a contrast with Trump on his labor record.
“As president, he blocked overtime benefits for millions of workers, he appointed union busters” to the National Labor Relations Board, she said, “and just recently, he said striking workers should be fired.”
Trump had previously tried to wield the strike against the Democrats. In a statement Tuesday, he said “American workers should be able to negotiate for better wages” and blamed the strike on “inflation brought on by Kamala Harris’ two votes for massive, out-of-control spending.”
Trump has long benefited from an image among some voters as a successful businessman who is well-equipped to manage the economy. Trump leaned into that impression when he was running this year against President Joe Biden, whom many Americans blame for inflation and high prices.
But after Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Harris managed to shake off some of that baggage, and opinion polls have shown her narrowing the gap with Trump about who can handle the economy better. If this strike drags on, though, the economic fallout from spiking prices and commodity shortages could imperil that progress.
As Ward Clark writes at sister site Red State: October Surprise! Kamala Harris Embraces Striking Port Workers, Owns Any Resulting Economic Damage.
Here’s the problem with her embracing the strikers: She now owns, whether fairly or unfairly, all of the economic fallout of this strike. All of the rising prices, all of the empty store shelves, all of the layoffs due to supply chain disruptions; she owns it all. She has chosen this, and in a month she may well learn that when you dine at the devil’s table, you don’t get to choose the menu. And it’s not just commodities that will be affected; if this strike drags on, there are indicators that it will affect the energy sector, too.
Then there’s the other endorsement Harris just tacitly made: Union boss who threatened to ‘cripple’ economy lives in luxe 7,000 square-foot mansion.
Harold Daggett — the union boss who has vowed to “cripple” the US economy if ports don’t ban automation and raise dockworkers’ wages sharply — had a Bentley convertible parked outside his sprawling mansion in New Jersey this week, exclusive photos obtained by The Post reveal.
Photos taken by drone on Tuesday show the British luxury car parked with its top up outside what appears to be a five-car garage that’s connected to his 7,136-square-foot, Tudor-style home by a covered skyway.
The hulking, two-story mansion — located on a 10-acre property in Sparta, a leafy enclave 50 miles west of New York City — encircles a spacious backyard patio with an amoeba-shaped pool. A covered outdoor bar is situated next to what appears to be a massive, brick pizza oven.
A gate on the far side of the patio opens toward what looks like a free-standing sauna surrounded by a spacious wooden deck. A expansive swathe of forest surrounds the property on all sides.
The posh compound is nestled in a picturesque section of the Garden State near the Delaware Water Gap, where five-bedroom homes list for as much as $6 million, according to Zillow.
One realtor who spoke to The Post said that Daggett put the four-bedroom, six-and-a-half bathroom property on the market in 2004 at a listing price of $3.1 million before reducing it to $2.9 million. He eventually took it off the market.
Daggett, who has been alleged to have ties with the mafia, is president of the International Longshoremen’s Association, a job that comes with a salary of $728,000 annually on top of an additional $173,000 from ILA-Local 1804-1.
Kamala-approved! Because it’s good to be in the nomenklatura. As Clark writes, “That’s not a good look, not when people are having trouble meeting their monthly grocery bills. It’s hard to feel much sympathy for a union boss bringing in damn near a million a year when you just had a mayonnaise sandwich for lunch.”