Buttigieg: “The Future is Electric, Whether We Like It or Not”

By
Mark Stevens
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In a recent interview, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made a bold prediction: “Cars are going electric, with or without us.”

Buttigieg made this declaration during a CNN appearance — in response to a question about President Joe Biden’s visit to speak with striking auto workers on the United Auto Workers (UAW) picket lines in Michigan.

Buttigieg began with a reference to his hometown of South Bend, Indiana, where he name-dropped two local UAW chapters before pivoting to talk about the economy and the transition to electric vehicles.

“Look, I come from South Bend, Indiana,” he said. “It’s the home of UAW Local 5 and UAW Local 9, I saw how the past generation of union auto jobs helped build the middle class build communities like the one I grew up in.”

“I also saw what happened when those factories closed,” he continued. “What the UAW is trying to do right now is to make sure that this next chapter of auto industry, which, let’s be very clear, these cars are going electric with or without us.”

While President Biden was on the picket line in Michigan, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) showed up at a UAW protest in Wentzville, Missouri. He took aim at the Biden administration’s efforts to force the auto industry to go electric “with or without” the workers.

“I’d call on the Biden Admin right now: Cancel all of your terrible electric mandates that are killing these guys and taking their jobs,” Hawley said. “And these companies … need to invest in America and in American workers.”

President Donald Trump is vowing to repeal Biden’s mandate.

“Joe Biden’s draconian and indefensible Electric Vehicle mandate will annihilate the U.S. auto industry and cost countless thousands of autoworkers their jobs. The only thing Biden could say today that would help the striking autoworkers is to announce the immediate termination of his ridiculous mandate. Anything else is just a feeble and insulting attempt to distract American labor from this vicious Biden betrayal,” Trump released in a statement Tuesday. “Crooked Joe should be ashamed to show his face before these hardworking Americans he is stabbing in the back. With Biden, it doesn’t matter what hourly wages they get, in three years there will be no autoworker jobs as they will all come out of China and other countries. With me, there will be jobs and wages like you’ve never seen before. Our economy will grow!”

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