Biden strikes economic populist tone during campaign rally before exuberant union members

PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden delivered an unapologetically economic populist message Saturday during the first rally of his reelection campaign, telling an exuberant crowd of union members that his policies had created jobs and lifted the middle class. Now, he said, is the time for the wealthy to “pay their fair share” in taxes.

Biden spotlighted the sweeping climate, tax and health care package signed into law last year that cut the cost of prescription drugs and lowered insurance premiums — pocketbook issues that advisers say will be the centerpiece of his argument for a second term.

“I’m looking forward to this campaign,” Biden said to cries of “four more years!” before adding, “We’ve got a record to run on.”

His choice of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania — and a friendly union audience — as his first official campaign stop reflected their crucial role in his reelection effort. The city was the site of his 2020 campaign headquarters and the state was one of a handful that had voted for Republican Donald Trump in 2016 but flipped back to Democrats four years later.

Until the rally, Biden’s primary reelection campaign activity had been fundraising as the campaign tries to amass an impressive fundraising haul before the year’s second quarter concludes at the end of the month. The president raised money at a private home in Greenwich, Connecticut, on Friday and soon will hold fundraisers in California, Maryland, Illinois and New York.

More than 1,000 union workers representing professions from carpenters and airport service workers to entertainers and heavy service equipment engineers — most wearing T-shirts bearing their union’s logos — began chanting “Let’s go, Joe!” and “We want Joe” and blowing whistles hours before the president arrived.

Biden did not mention any of his potential Republican opponents by name, but said many in the GOP “oppose everything I’ve done.” Pointing to high inflation rates, Republicans have criticized “Biden-omics” a term the president tried to turn back his opponents on Saturday.

“I don’t know what the hell that is,” he said, “but it’s working.”

The event, which organizers said included unions representing 18 million workers nationwide, recalled then-candidate Biden opening his 2020 presidential campaign at a union hall in Pittsburgh.

Several of the nation’s most powerful unions — including the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — officially endorsed Biden’s campaign on Friday. The first-of-its-kind joint endorsement among the unions, and the backdrop of hundreds of workers are part of a meticulously choreographed effort to show the support of labor behind what Biden himself calls the most pro-union president in history.