Steven Rattner, who once served as the Obama administration’s “car czar,” slammed President Joe Biden for joining the United Auto Workers (UAW) picket line.
NBC News reported the criticism on Tuesday just as Biden arrived in Michigan to stand with protesters who are striking against “Big Three” automakers Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis in an effort to secure higher wages, improved benefits, and more.
“For him to be going on a picket line is outrageous,” Rattner told the news outlet.
“There’s no precedent for it,” he added. “The tradition of the president is to stay neutral in these things. I get the politics. The progressives all said, ‘We don’t want a mediator; we want an advocate.’ And he bowed to the progressives, and now he’s going out there to put his thumb on the scale. And it’s wrong.”
Rattner, a Wall Street financier, led former President Barack Obama’s auto industry task force and oversaw the federal auto industry bailout of 2009.
He wrote a guest essay published last week by The New York Times that expressed support for auto workers ge …