MSNBC co-host Joe Scarborough said on Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris “needs help” after a union that backed President Joe Biden in 2020 decided not to endorse her in this year’s election.
On Thursday, the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) said it would not be endorsing Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, or former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, in this year’s election after leadership narrowly decided against backing any candidate.
“Today, the IAFF Executive Board, by a margin of 1.2%, voted to not endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election,” IAFF General President Edward Kelly said in a statement. “This decision, which we took very seriously, is the best way to preserve and strengthen our unity. We encourage our members—and all eligible voters—to get out and make their voices heard in the upcoming election.”
Kelly said that the decision was made after the union “took unprecedented steps to hear our members views on the candidates and the policy issues that matter most to them.”
The IAFF represents nearly 350,000 firefighters, emergency medical workers and rescue workers across the United States and Canada.
On Friday, Scarborough, an outspoken Trump critic, reacted to the IAFF’s decision and said during a panel on MSNBC‘s Morning Joe, “Guys that may have voted for Trump in ’16, barely were able to vote for him in ’20, and they’ve said it to me, they hate the fact that they’re going to have to vote for this guy in 2024.”
Scarborough said that some members of the union felt they could not vote for a Democrat, let along Harris.
“…Kamala Harris needs help in this area…The firefighters, who were Joe Biden’s most strident supporters, the firefighters union followed the Teamsters union and decided they weren’t going to get involved in the presidential race. Again, it could have been much worse,” he added. “They could have done what Teamsters have done in the past and endorse a Republican president, but they did not do that yesterday.”
Newsweek has reached out to Harris’ and Trump’s campaign for comment via email Friday afternoon.
The IAFF’s non-endorsement follows a similar move by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which last month declined to endorse either candidate despite having previously backed every Democratic candidate since 2000.
Trump touted the Teamsters non-endorsement as an “honor” shortly after Teamsters President Sean O’Brien announced the decision, saying during a Fox News interview that the union carries “a lot of weight.”
“The Democrats cannot believe…it was always automatic that Democrats get the Teamsters,” the former president said. “They said we won’t endorse the Democrats this year, so that was an honor for me.”
On Friday, The Morning Joe panel discussed whether the decision by the two unions’ showed Harris was struggling with male voters.
“That is reflective of what is becoming a growing concern among Democrats and the Harris campaign, that she is, indeed, struggling with male voters, in particular working class, blue collar and often white male voters,” journalist Jonathan Lemire said. “There needs to be more outreach to those groups. These are groups that, over the last few years, have started to break toward Trump, these non-college educated voters are breaking Republican, they’re breaking Trump. It’s a growing sign of concern.”
Harris has shown stronger performance with female voters in recent polling, particularly among younger women, while Trump has performed better among male voters. Scarborough said that the Harris campaign needed to do more to reach out to that group.
While the vice president has not enjoyed the same union backing as Biden who stepped down from the race at the end of July and endorsed Harris as his successor, she has seen a flurry of celebrity endorsements, including singer Bruce Springsteen.
Scarborough said that may do Harris some favors, as voters could look to stars like Springsteen, as well as the likes of Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey and Mark Hamill, and see someone they perhaps respected and therefore would be influenced by them when casting their ballot.
Meanwhile, the Trump-Vance ticket has been endorsed by a handful of police unions and the National Border Patrol Council, while Harris-Walz has been backed by the AFL-CIO, the United Auto Workers and nearly every other major U.S. labor union.
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