Detroit:

The United Auto Workers Union said on Tuesday it has filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board against Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk over attempts to threaten and intimidate workers.

It is unclear whether the NLRB would take action against Trump for his comments on Monday during a two-hour conversation with Musk that was broadcast on social media platform X.

pic.twitter.com/47H3HLczZL

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 13, 2024

The UAW seized upon Trump’s remarks as the union rallies behind Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris and encourages its nearly 400,000 workers to vote for her over Trump. The issue is especially pertinent in battleground states like Michigan which could determine who wins the White House in November. The UAW endorsed Harris at the end of July.

“You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump said to Musk during Monday’s conversation, complimenting the CEO’s ability to cut costs by saying he would not tolerate workers going on strike. “I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say: ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike – I won’t mention the name of the company – but they go on strike. And you say: ‘That’s okay, you’re all gone.'”

Musk chuckled but did not respond to Trump’s comments, making it harder for the NLRB to find him liable for making illegal threats to workers at his companies, said Wilma Liebman, chair of the NLRB under former President Barack Obama.

Under federal law, workers cannot be fired for going on strike, and threatening to do so is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act, the UAW said in a statement.

After the union’s action on Tuesday, Musk criticised UAW President Shawn Fain in a social media post, alluding to two past union presidents who went to prison for bribery and corruption. “Based on recent news, it looks like this guy will join them!” Musk said.

A court-appointed monitor of the UAW is investigating several union executives, including allegations that Fain retaliated against a member of his board when the person did not take actions that would have benefitted Fain’s domestic partner and her sister. The UAW could not immediately be reached to comment on Musk’s response.

Trump campaign officials said his pledged 100% tariff on Chinese imports would strengthen the industry, while Harris’ EV policies are hurting American manufacturing.

“This frivolous lawsuit is a shameless political stunt intended to erode President Trump’s overwhelming support among America’s workers,” Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said in a statement.

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment after the UAW’s action.

Fain and Trump have exchanged barbs in the past.

“Both Trump and Musk want working-class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns,” Fain said in a statement on Tuesday.

Trump has called for the union leader to be fired, saying he is responsible for US auto manufacturing becoming weaker.

UAW members in Michigan tend to side with Democrats, but pro-Trump workers have organised their own rallies in recent weeks.

In the 2020 presidential race, 62% of Michigan households with a union member voted for President Joe Biden, helping him win the state, according to Edison Research. By contrast, union households split 53% to 40% for Hillary Clinton in 2016, when she narrowly lost the state and the national race.

Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, another key labour group, said of Trump’s comments, “Firing workers for organising, striking, and exercising their rights as Americans is economic terrorism.”

The Teamsters have traditionally endorsed a candidate after party conventions. O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July.

The union had also requested a speaking opportunity at the upcoming Democratic National Convention but it had not heard back, spokesperson Kara Deniz said. It had also invited Harris to a roundtable but had not heard back.

Sending a message

The NLRB has limited power to punish unlawful labor practices and the process often lasts years. In cases involving illegal threats, the board can order employers to cease and desist from such conduct and to post notices in the workplace informing workers of their rights. Unions can also use favourable rulings from the NLRB to engage workers they are trying to organise.

“Everyone knows the NLRB remedies are toothless to start with, but it’s not so much for the remedy as for sending both a political message and an organising message,” former NLRB head Liebman said, referring to the UAW’s action on Tuesday.

Fain filed separate complaints with the NLRB against the Trump campaign and Tesla citing Trump and Musk as the employers’ representatives, claiming both men had made statements suggesting they “would fire employees engaged in protected concerted activity, including striking.” The complaints did not provide further detail.

The NLRB has jurisdiction over the Trump campaign as an employer, but not Trump himself.

The UAW led a six-week strike against Detroit’s Big Three automakers last autumn, before winning record contracts.

Musk and the NLRB

Musk, who has endorsed Trump for president, has had numerous run-ins with the labour board. His rocket company SpaceX is currently challenging the entire structure of the agency in a pair of pending lawsuits. Those cases stemmed from NLRB complaints accusing SpaceX of firing engineers who were critical of Musk and forcing employees to sign severance agreements with unlawful terms.

In March, a US appeals court upheld an NLRB decision that said Musk illegally threatened Tesla employees by tweeting in 2018: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union … But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?”

Tesla is separately facing allegations from the board that it illegally discouraged unionising at a Buffalo, New York, plant.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Former US President Donald Trump is planning to stop holding campaign rallies outdoors in the wake of the 13 July assassination attempt, as per a report in Newsweek. The team of the Republican contender for 2024 has stated that campaigning will be held indoors for security reasons. Mr Trump might still make an appearance at smaller outdoor rallies, but they will take place in places like stadiums with strictly restricted admissions.

Notably, Mr Trump has hosted hundreds of outdoor rallies since he announced his presidential campaign. For his fans and supporters, these events have taken on the character of festivals, complete with parties and vendors selling campaign memorabilia and products.

The move, which was first reported by the Washington Post, coincides with the resignation of Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, on Tuesday. Ms Cheatle was subjected to a hostile grilling by both Democrats and Republicans before a congressional committee over apparent security lapses before a 20-year-old gunman’s attempt on Mr Trump’s life.

In a letter of resignation, Ms Cheatle stated she had decided to leave the agency “with a heavy heart,” citing the Butler rally as the reason it “fell short” of the agency’s mandate to “protect our nation’s leaders.”

According to the Washington Post report, Mr Trump’s team informed the Secret Service that the 2024 re-election campaign intended to host big events and would require more resources and security. However, it is believed that the agency rejected the requests due to a shortage of funding.

Meanwhile, the 45th US President was hit in the ear in an assassination bid by a gunman at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania today. Blood was visible on his cheeks and mouth. The shooter was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. He has been killed. A spectator was also killed in the shooting and two others were “critically” injured, officials said.

The 78-year-old Republican presidential contender, whose team claimed he was “fine,” was attacked shortly as he began his speech. “I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” Mr Trump said on his Truth Social account.

Washington:

Donald Trump was facing a backlash Thursday after declining to pledge he will accept the results of the 2024 presidential election if he loses, as he repeated his false claims that he was cheated in the 2020 vote.

“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results,” the Republican former president told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Wednesday. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”

Trump — who is running for a return to the White House, in what will almost certainly be a re-run of his 2020 face-off with Joe Biden — made similar remarks ahead of the last two presidential elections.

He told the Sentinel he would “let it be known” if he thought there were problems.

“I’d be doing a disservice to the country if I said otherwise,” he said. “But no, I expect an honest election and we expect to win maybe very big.”

Trump equivocated when asked recently by Time Magazine if his defeat in November would spark political violence, and his latest remarks prompted a withering response from the Biden camp.

“Bottom line: Trump is a danger to the constitution and a threat to our democracy,” campaign spokesman James Singer said in a statement.

“The American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge.”

Trump is facing dozens of felony charges over an alleged criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election — culminating in the storming of the US Capitol by his supporters — that was based on his false claims of voter fraud.

The former president continues to make baseless claims that the White House was stolen from him in 2020, repeatedly and falsely alleging at two rallies as recently as Wednesday that Democrats had committed widespread voter fraud.

“The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020 and we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024. We won’t have a country left,” Trump thundered in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)