WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ahead of Tuesday’s presidential debate in Cleveland, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) spoke exclusively with Spectrum Washington bureau reporter Taylor Popielarz about the state of the race and how Biden has embraced Brown’s “Dignity of Work” message.
Sen. Brown: Biden Has Become “Dignity Of Work” Presidential Candidate I Would’ve Been
You can watch the full, uncut conversation above or read the full transcript below.
Taylor Popielarz: I want to start off going back to April 7, that’s when you formally endorsed Joe Biden. And you had said in the statement that was released that, ‘Dignity of work isn’t a slogan. It’s who we are and how we govern. Joe Biden understands that.’ I’m curious, at that point, did you believe Biden was the dignity of work presidential candidate that you would’ve run as? Or was there a moment after you endorsed him that you really came to feel like, OK, he gets the message that I wanted the nominee to portray?
Senator Brown: I think who Joe Biden is is a candidate that understands workers, all workers. Whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge or work for tips or work for a salary or are raising kids or taking care of grandparents. He understands that. He understands if you love your country, you fight for the people that make it work. And he understands, and has through his career, the dignity of work — whether he used that term or not throughout his career doesn’t really matter. And I think the contrast between Biden, as the dignity of work candidate — I mean, I argue Biden is the most pro-worker, pro-labor, pro-union candidate in my lifetime. You contrast Biden with Trump and his dismissal of workers, his betrayal of workers, it’s a really clear race of who’s on workers’ sides. And I think that’s why Biden, in polling, is now even or better in Ohio, a state that has drifted Republican but is coming back to Biden, as it does to me, because he runs a pro-worker campaign — I mean all workers, of both genders and all races — runs a pro-worker campaign, and that’s the way he will govern.
Taylor Popielarz: I’m interested, because it’s a big statement for you to say he’s the most pro-worker candidate in your lifetime or in a generation, did you always feel that way about him? Or was there something that he had to earn to kind of prove that to you?
Senator Brown: I’ve told him and told others that the best day in my Senate career probably, other than the birth of six grandchildren during my time in the Senate, is the day that he and I — when he was vice president — and the secretary of labor flew to Columbus, Ohio to announce the overtime rule which meant 130,000 Ohioans making $30,000, $40,000, $45,000 a year would get paid overtime when they worked extra hours even though they were supervisors. And that meant 130,000 workers got a raise in my state. So I mean, he’s done that in the past. He is a candidate that I think — because of his background growing up in Scranton, and again, you contrast growing up in Scranton as a working class kid to Donald Trump inheriting a billion dollars and taking some of that money and ending up in bankruptcy with several companies and all of that, I just think that Biden intuitively understands that we honor workers in this country. And again, not just white male union workers, but workers across the board. And especially essential workers. I talk to essential workers all the time. A grocery store worker told me, ‘You know, they say, I’m essential but I really feel expendable because they don’t pay me much and they don’t protect me much at work.’ And too many essential workers have died from this pandemic. President Trump still will not impose on employers worker safety standards. We know that 1,300 workers in one worksite in South Dakota got coronavirus. It’s a company owned by the Chinese Communist Party. It’s a multi-billion dollar company where 1,300 workers get sick and a number of them die. The president imposed a $13,000 fine on this multi-billion dollar company, so Trump’s basically saying, ‘Oh, it’s OK. You don’t have to really worry about worker safety during this pandemic or any other time.’ Joe Biden would never be that president.
Taylor Popielarz: I was watching back all of the stories I did from your listening tour in early 2019 this morning, just to kind fo refresh my mind of the dignity of work message. And there was a quote that you said in your kickoff speech in Ohio where you said, ‘We speak to our progressive values. We talk to workers about their lives.’ And throughout that whole tour and every conversation I saw your have with voters, you tried to explain how in your mind Democrats could be successful not only just appealing to progressives, or just appealing to maybe the working class that isn’t as left-leaning, but that you could thread the needle and kind of pull it together. Do you feel that Biden has been successfully doing that?
Senator Brown: Yeah I think Biden mostly has figured out — I mean he always kind of intuitively understood this — that workers, the economy grows because workers are productive and workers then get raises. And the economy’s not grown as much in the last 10 years, as it sometimes historically in the past has when workers are paid better, when workers have an ability to join a union. If we have more unions in our country, we’ll have more economic growth. There’s no question. We’ll have more people that make a good wage, that have health care, that have a retirement. And that lifts all boats. It’s not giving tax cuts to rich people, as President Trump wants to do, it’s building the economy, focusing on workers, and workers doing better and being prosperous. And American history shows that. Biden understands it, Trump doesn’t. And that’s why Trump keeps coming back — tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich. And Biden says let’s increase the minimum wage, let’s bring back overtime pay that Trump took away, let’s pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act so people, if they want to join a union, can be faced with a level playing field so they can join a union. That’s a whole different kind of campaign and different kind of government that Biden would run, versus what we’re seeing today.
Taylor Popielarz: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first debate is happening in Ohio. It’s only a couple of days away. Because, as we’ve all watched President Trump throughout the last few years, we know one of his strategies is to kind of flood the zone. Whether it’s with attacks or falsehoods or just kind of exclamatory statements, he basically never backs down, he’ll always hit back. What do you think Biden will have to do in the debate to get this pro-worker message that you’re talking about across without being drowned out?
Senator Brown: Well I think he just — he can’t follow Donald Trump around and correct all his lies. Trump’s going to lie, we know that. Trump’s going to lie about what he did for the economy — the economy’s grown more slowly under Trump than it did under Obama/Biden over the last three years. I just think Biden sticks to his message and always makes the contrast, he’s the dignity of work candidate who looks out for workers, who governs through the eyes of workers, who cares about those issues of empowering workers so they’re paid more and have better benefits. And contrast it with Trump’s betrayal. Trump told workers in Youngstown don’t sell your homes, good jobs are coming back. He took away the overtime rule. He installed as the secretary of labor the most anti-worker — a corporate lawyer, no surprise — secretary of labor we’ve ever seen. And the icing on the cake, and the most awful thing that Trump did, was took away the $600 a week that has meant millions and millions of workers in Ohio and across the country, many of them are going to slip into poverty because what are they to do to pay their bills when they can’t find jobs and they lost their unemployment benefit?
Taylor Popielarz: Have you been directly involved in Biden’s debate prep since the first one’s happening in Ohio?
Senator Brown: I’ve talked to people that are doing it. I’m certainly not in the room nor do I want to be nor should I be. I’ve been through debate prep, of course not on that level, but the Senate debate prep is pretty arduous — I mean, nobody makes me do it, I understand. But the debate prep is that you don’t want another chef in the stew there. I just go talk to the right people about issues. They’ve called me about — I mean, I know the Biden people understand you run a campaign about the dignity of work, it helps you everywhere, especially in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. And it’s not a surprise that Democrats chose, as the nominee, the most pro-worker, pro-labor, pro-union candidate in our lifetimes.
Taylor Popielarz: Based off of that understanding you say the campaign has of the dignity of work message, I’ve seen — your team as also flagged for me — various instances, whether it’s TV ads or speeches excerpts where Biden and his campaign are definitely saying, sometimes word for word, the messages that you put out there during your listening tour and during your re-election campaign in 2018. Was that by coincidence? Or have you sat down with the Biden team and said, ‘Listen, this worked for me in Ohio after Trump won. You need to do this or you won’t do as well here.’
Senator Brown: Well I don’t know if that’s quite the right — exactly what’s happened. But I spend a lot of time talking to them. I talk to a number of his advisors and his media people and, I mean, this isn’t about process to me. I think they realize that in the industrial Midwest, it’s getting more and more difficult to win. Republicans are really good at districting voters. They give tax cuts to rich people and then they attack Democrats on a lot of made-up issues. They know workers in this country don’t have high expectations of politicians, I think that’s why some of them settled on Trump. But I don’t blame Trump’s election on working class voters. Trump won, in large part, because the typical Republican overwhelmingly voted for Trump, and that’s a whole lot of rich people. Don’t forget, the average Trump voter is richer than the average Biden voter, so it’s not like Trump has any magic with working class voters. He has a set of social issues that may attract some of them, but in the end, working class voters will understand Biden is their friend more than Trump is.
Taylor Popielarz: I remember you talking about the math in your 2018 race, of how many Trump voters you had to win back onto your side in order to be re-elected. You did that successfully. At his rally in Swanton on Monday, Trump literally said, ‘We will defend the dignity of work and the sanctity of life.’ Because he was successful in Ohio — and I get your argument about who most of the Republican base is — but because he was successful in winning over a good amount of working class voters in Ohio in ’16, what makes you think that they’re going to feel any differently this time around if he’s still saying the same stuff that he was in ’16 today?
Senator Brown: Trump says plenty of the right things to win voters over, but he hasn’t delivered. I mean he — we lost manufacturing jobs, he has totally bungled the coronavirus causing [audio freezes for a moment] that’s not because we don’t have good doctors in Ohio or across the country, it’s because of our leaders, specifically our president and majority leader of the Senate. He’s betrayed workers right and left. Workers are doing worse under Trump by any measurement than they were when he took office, the economy’s doing worse, our public health system is weaker than it was when he took office. He’s the candidate of rich real estate interests and the candidate of the NRA, and he’s not the candidate of workers. That’s just really clear, and that Biden is.
Taylor Popielarz: In conversations you’ve been having with your constituents — and I know you’ve been very diligent about not having in-person events. You’ve been pretty much doing everything from your computer. Are there frustrations that Biden hasn’t physically been in Ohio since the pandemic started and the lockdowns began? Because Trump has been there and he’s clearly turning out pretty good sized crowds, even though we’re in the midst of a pandemic.
Senator Brown: Trump is without question spreading the coronavirus. I support the fact that Vice President Biden, the Democratic candidate, respects human life. That he doesn’t think putting an unmasked, close together crowd for several hours with them spewing out campaign chants, that Biden knows that’s not a good thing for public health and not a good thing for those families. Trump doesn’t care. When Trump was asked about these big crowds and about being safe, he said, ‘Oh, I’m several feet away. I’m safe.’ Well, we weren’t asking about you, Mr. President, we were asking about the crowds. So I think we’re, again, we’re the party that really does care about life and about human beings, and that means we respect life and human beings and we don’t put them at risk for our political rallies. That’s why I don’t go out — I’m going, next week, I’m going to do an outdoor tree planting kind of neighborhood thing. I do a few things like that, but I’m not going to put — and we’ll all be socially distanced — I’m not going to put people at risk so I can have people clap for me. I don’t see the point of that.
Taylor Popielarz: Are you hearing, though, from local political leaders in Ohio or from voters that they wish Biden would come and hold a socially distant, smaller event in Ohio? Because he’s gone to other states but he hasn’t been to Ohio since March.
Senator Brown: He’s going to be in Ohio for the debate. He will do something around the debate. He’ll be here. I’ve spent a lot of time with Joe Biden in Ohio. I know he cares about this state, I know he knows this state. I’ve been on a bus tour with him, I don’t know, maybe five times over the years of various distances in Ohio. He knows the state better than Donald Trump knows it. Donald Trump flies in with his hour — beautiful plane in the background, does a rally at the airport, and flies back out. My favorite line from Abraham Lincoln, he’s in the White House, his staff says stay in the White House, win the war, free the slaves, preserve the Union. And Lincoln says, ‘No, I’ve got to go get my public opinion bath.’ Well, Joe Biden’s had a lot more public opinion baths in Ohio than Donald Trump because he’s actually listened to voters. And Trump comes in, speaks — the only thing he listens to is chants when they chant his name back. So I take a backseat to nobody in terms of Joe Biden’s caring about this state. Just because Donald Trump’s been here a lot in Air Force One and speaks to big rallies doesn’t mean he cares about the state.
Taylor Popielarz: And then lastly, I remember when we were in Nevada during your listening tour, you had told me after we were at the Culinary Union, that it was one of your hopes, whether you were going to run for president or not, that the dignity of work message was kind of learned and understood throughout your party as a whole. And it seems now that you feel that you’ve accomplished that in some regard. With the debate on Tuesday, I don’t know how many voters will actually be swayed by what they watch and how many actually tune in, but is there anything you think Biden has to do on Tuesday night, in terms of that dignity of work message? Or is there any territory he shouldn’t get into that you think could help him?
Senator Brown: I don’t have much opinion on what we shouldn’t do. I think what he should do is what he has been doing, and that is again, making the contrast between dignity of work and commitment to workers and Trump’s betrayal of workers. It’s a really simple explanation. Trump can say the words he says, but Biden can do that because he is the most pro-worker, pro-union candidate in a generation. And he believes it. And he comes from that. Donald Trump, clearly, has never had much regard for workers. He doesn’t talk to them, he doesn’t listen to them, he makes speeches in front of them, but most importantly as president, he never fights for them. If there’s a fork in the road and it’s corporate special interests down one road and workers’ interests on the other, he always takes the corporate side. He appoints judges that way; he appoints the secretary of labor that way; he takes away the overtime rule; he refuses after 12, 13 years to raise the minimum wage; he took away $600 from workers’ unemployment when there’s hundreds of thousands in Ohio that can’t find jobs, and millions across the country.
Taylor Popielarz: Do you think that Biden, how he does on Tuesday night, do you hope it will be as good as if you were the candidate up on stage to put out that dignity of work message?
Senator Brown: I don’t know what that means. He’ll do fine. I mean, I don’t know that debates have a big impact on races. I think debates probably have the most impact when somebody makes a mistake. Biden will do fine and he’s going to win this race and voters will know that he’s the candidate of the dignity of work.
Taylor Popielarz: Anything else you want to add?
Senator Brown: That’s it. Thanks, buddy!
Taylor Popielarz: Alright, thank you!