PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden officially kicked off his 2024 re-election campaign Saturday at a union rally in Philadelphia, touting economic wins that he hopes can win him a second term in office.
Biden spoke to a crowd of 2,000 people at the Union rally as he made his argument for another four years in the White House.
“Just think back. Remember what it was like when I came to office, we came into office. Remember the mess we inherited,” Biden told the audience. “Now look at where we are today.”
The President touted his administration’s accomplishments that included the bipartisan infrastructure law, a coronavirus relief package, a bipartisan semiconductor chip manufacturing law, and the debt ceiling deal.
“We’ve created 13 million new jobs since I became president. The unemployment rate is down to nearly a 50-year low. I’ve seen record lows for Black employment and Hispanic employment as well. We’ve created 800,000 manufacturing jobs,” Biden said. “Inflation has come down 11 months in a row and is going to continue to come down. Today it’s less than half of what it was a year ago. This didn’t just happen. We made it happen.”
Biden slammed Republican tax proposals and made only a brief mention of former President Donald Trump, who is currently the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
“Under my predecessor, infrastructure week became a punchline,” Biden said. “On my watch, we’re making infrastructure a decade headline.”
The rally comes just one day after Biden was endorsed by several labor groups, including AFL-CIO, the earliest point in a presidential election cycle it had ever endorsed a candidate.
“I’m more honored by your endorsement than you can imagine – coming this early, it’s going to make a gigantic difference in this campaign,” Biden said. “I’m the most pro-union president in American history.”
“There’s absolutely no question that Joe Biden is the most pro-union president in our lifetimes,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “From bringing manufacturing jobs home to America to protecting our pensions and making historic investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and education, we’ve never seen a president work so tirelessly to rebuild our economy from the bottom up and middle out.”
The rally marks the first of several events for the Biden-Harris campaign. The President will travel to California, Maryland, and Chicago over the next month for fundraising events. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris will be in New York City, Dallas, and Maryland while the first lady is headed to Tennessee and Minnesota.
