Biden's infrastructure coordinator lists 'climate and equity' ahead of ...

Biden's infrastructure coordinator lists 'climate and equity' ahead of ...
Biden's infrastructure coordinator lists 'climate and equity' ahead of ...

Joe Biden's commitment to blue collar workers has been called into question after his infrastructure tsar listed climate change and equity before mentioning helping industrial workers in a new interview.   

Speaking on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Wednesday as Biden flew to Kansas City to promote the $1.2 trillion bill, Landrieu said he had met personally with 30 mayors and had reached out to every Governor in the US to discuss the infrastructure plan. 

'What the president's asking us to do is use this policy to rebuild the country,' Landrieu said. 'This is a three, five, ten-year proposal...Look, we're going to build a better America' 

'We need to think about climate. For those of us that are from the south, we know this really, really well. Of course resilience, and building back in a way that's stronger and better.

'Also, for communities that have been left out, he said secondly, equity is critically important. We cannot leave anybody behind,' the former Mayor of New Orleans said

Landrieu continued: 'Third, blue-collar jobs, so he wants labor involved in this in a big way with workforce training. And then he said he wants to rebuild America's industrial base by investing in Made in America products.'

Speaking on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Wednesday as Biden flew to Kansas City to promote the bill, infrastructure coordinator Mitch Landrieu said he had met personally with 30 mayors and had reached out to every Governor in the US to discuss the infrastructure plan

Speaking on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Wednesday as Biden flew to Kansas City to promote the bill, infrastructure coordinator Mitch Landrieu said he had met personally with 30 mayors and had reached out to every Governor in the US to discuss the infrastructure plan

The mention of blue collar jobs third is likely to alarm working class Democrats, many of whom were lured by the president's tales of growing up in the industrial town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which he claims gives him an affinity with ordinary Americans.

'Equity' is a new buzzword that the Biden administration has taken to using instead of equality. It means helping everyone to achieve the same outcome, rather than giving them all the same opportunity. The term is also heavily-associated with woke practices including anti-racism lessons in schools, and could further damage Biden's standing among centrists.  

Landrieu said the US the president firmly believed in 'one team, one fight,' and the administration was trying to include every leader in US cities and states, regardless of their party. 

During the MSNBC segment, Landrie said: 'My first job is to try to make sure that the cabinet is one team, one fight, and we are communicating with the governors and we are communicating with the mayors.'

'So I've spent the last couple of weeks really reaching out. I've reached out to talk, to  text or left a message for every governor in the country. I've talked to 30 mayors personally. I've talked to the National Mayors Association.'  

'The president says, ''look, one team, one fight, one mission.'' Number two, he said, ''look, when I did this with president Obama, you know, I was pretty good at it,'' and he was.'

Landrieu also talked about the expectations placed on the administration to distribute the $1.2 trillion, mentioning that the complication was that 'everybody wants [us] to hit the ground tomorrow.' 

It passed the house last month, although centrist Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have both continued to voice opposition over fears of inflation. 

'But what he said...is really important because, you know, whenever you throw a lot of money and stuff if you do it too fast you can kind of get out of the way. But if you do it right, it takes a little bit longer,' he said. 

Earlier in the summer, Biden said unemployment incentives were keeping people from rejoining the workforce and told a restaurant owner in Ohio at a town hall in May: 'We’re ending all of those things that are things keeping people from going back to work.' 

He also told the restaurant owner that he'd have to increase wages if he wanted to entice people back to work. 

Some Republican states ended COVID unemployment benefits early in an effort to incentivize people to return to work. 

Landrieu said blue-collar jobs came on third for Biden, despite his relentless political branding ahead of last year's election, which painted him as a small-town guy from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who would ride the train from Delaware to work in DC every day, and whose pledge was to create more blue-collar jobs for the American working class

Landrieu said blue-collar jobs came on third for Biden, despite his relentless political branding ahead of last year's election, which painted him as a small-town guy from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who would ride the train from Delaware to work in DC every day, and whose pledge was to create more blue-collar jobs for the American working class

President Joe Biden signs the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as he is surrounded by lawmakers and members of his Cabinet during a ceremony on the South Lawn at the White House on November 15

President Joe Biden signs the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as he is surrounded by lawmakers and members of his Cabinet during a ceremony on the South Lawn at the White House on November 15

In September, more than 7million Americans lost federal unemployment benefits and an additional 3million stopped receiving a $300 weekly boost on checks as emergency COVID payments expired. 

Meanwhile, private companies in the US added 534,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell to 4.5 percent, despite worker shortages remain a challenge.

On Wednesday, Biden flew to Kansas City to highlight the bipartisan credentials of the new $1.2 trillion infrastructure law – lavishing praise on Republicans and vowing to create an 'infrastructure decade.'

'Guess what, it's going to be an infrastructure decade,' he said, mocking former President Donald Trump's repeat 'infrastructure weeks' - which often coincided with a scandal. 

'No more talking, action,' the president added. 

He began his speech at Kansas City Area Transit Authority by honoring the late son of Russell Kansas, Bob Dole, a Republican who spent 37 years in the Senate – a year longer than Biden.

He praised Dole's 'both physical and moral courage' and called him 'among the greatest of the great generation,' calling the former Senate leader, who died Tuesday, a 'cherished friend to me and my wife, Jill.' 

Dole was just one of the Republicans Biden tipped his hat to.

Throughout the day, he made a point of name-checking

read more from dailymail.....

PREV Fury as NHS guidance states children as young as 15 CAN be given irreversible ... trends now
NEXT In news vacuum, rumours and concern swirl over Catherine mogaznewsen