Trump Fumes Over Firefighters’ Union Endorsement of Biden

He took out his anger with dozens of retweets, including one of an account called “Fuck Donald Trump.”

Douglas Christian/ZUMA

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President Donald Trump’s simmering resentment after the country’s largest firefighters’ union backed Joe Biden’s presidential bid was on full display Wednesday morning, with the president furiously retweeting dozens of posts claiming to be authored by firefighters at odds with the International Association of Fire Fighters’ endorsement this week.

Trump kicked off the marathon of retweets by first complaining that the “dues sucking” IAFF was indebted to him.

The president’s frenzied social media activity came two days after the IAFF declared that Biden was the “strongest candidate” and had a “worker-focused platform.” Hours after the group’s announcement on Monday, Biden spoke at a Teamster union hall in Pittsburgh for his first speech as a 2020 candidate, telling the crowd that he chose the city for its “hardworking, middle-class Americans.” As Mother Jones reported from the scene, IAFF President Harold Schaitberger was among the speakers to introduce Biden at the event.

“He speaks to and connects with those workers who didn’t believe the last Democratic nominee heard about them, cared about them, and felt that their historic votes for the Democratic candidate were maybe just being taken for granted,” Schaitberger told the crowd.

Much to his critics’ delight, Trump’s ongoing anger over the IAFF’s endorsement appears to have had a blinding effect. His Wednesday morning retweeting spree swept up an account called “Fuck Donald Trump.”

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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