Why a union president crossed partisan lines for a starring role at Trump’s RNC

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CNN —

It was a remarkable moment Monday night at the Republican National Convention, surely creating some amount of confusion among longtime Republicans, when Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, delivered a stemwinder of a speech in prime time. He called former President Donald Trump a “tough S.O.B.”

O’Brien did not endorse Trump, but he leaned into the incongruity of speaking at the convention of a party that has long fought workers’ ability to organize. The union could vote to endorse a candidate later this year.

“The Teamsters are doing something correct if the extremes in both parties think I shouldn’t be on this stage,” O’Brien said, adding that the union has endorsed Republican presidents Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush in the past. This year, the Teamsters may not endorse any candidate, even though Biden has fashioned himself as the most pro-labor president in US history. Biden became the first president to join a picket line, when he appeared with striking auto workers in Michigan in 2023.

CNN " data-fave-thumbnails="{"big": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/teamsters.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill" }, "small": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/teamsters.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill" } }" data-vr-video="false" data-show-html="" data-byline-html=" By Phil Mattingly, CNN " data-check-event-based-preview="" data-is-vertical-video-embed="false" data-network-id="" data-publish-date="2024-07-16T03:04:26.335Z" data-video-section="politics"