Donald Trump and UAW President Shawn Fain exchange barbs: 'Get rid of this dope'

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump and United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain are exchanging back-and-forth barbs after the union endorsed President Joe Biden last month.

In a Fox News interview set to air Sunday, Trump dismissed the United Auto Workers as a “hopeless case.”

“They’ve led their industry right into the poor house, and now they’ve finished it off because, if you — if Biden gets elected, you won’t have an autoworker working in the United States. Everything’s going over to China and other countries outside,” he said.

This comes just days after Trump called Fain a “dope” in a Truth Social Post Sunday in response to an interview Fain gave on CBS’s “Face the Nation” arguing that while Biden has stood up for the American worker, Trump has “a history of serving himself and standing for the billionaire class.”

The feud between the two comes as President Joe Biden and Trump compete to win over Michigan, a key battleground state home to the most auto workers in the U.S. Though Trump won Michigan in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, he lost the state to Biden in 2020.

The former president turned his attention to the Teamsters Union, which represents 1.3 million American workers. Trump participated in a roundtable on Wednesday with the Teamsters’ general executive board, its president Sean O’Brien, general secretary-treasurer Fred Zuckerman, and other members in Washington, D.C.

O’Brien said the meeting with Trump “went fine," but added that there's a "long way to go before" the union makes a decision on an endorsement.

Meanwhile, Fain expressed on CNN’s “The Source” with Kaitlan Collins Thursday that while he can’t speak for O’Brien, he “can’t see any way in hell a union would endorse” Trump for president.

“Look, they chose to entertain visiting with candidates, and that’s a path they chose. I mean, I saw no point in it because I look at the track record of Donald Trump. I mean, his two favorite words are, ‘You’re fired,’” O’Brien said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Dope': Trump and UAW President Shawn Fain exchange barbs