Lest you thought Trump's deal to save Carrier jobs was a blatant attempt to takeover the stereotypical Democrat role of endlessly pandering to union bosses, think again. After coming under attack from Chuck Jones, President of the United Steelworkers 1999, for "lying his ass off" about the Carrier deal, Trump blasted the union boss with a mini tweet storm of his own saying that Jones should "spend more time working-less time talking."
Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2016
If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana. Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2016
Of course, the Trump tweets followed comments from Jones to the Washington Post that Trump "lied his ass off" about the number of Carrier jobs being saved.
Jones, president of the United Steelworkers 1999, which represents Carrier employees, felt optimistic when Trump announced last week that he’d reached a deal with the factory’s parent company, United Technologies, to preserve 1,100 of the Indianapolis jobs — until the union leader heard from Carrier that only 730 of the production jobs would stay and 550 of his members would lose their livelihoods, after all.
At the Dec. 1 meeting, where Trump was supposed to lay out the details, Jones hoped he would explain himself.
“But he got up there,” Jones said Tuesday, “and, for whatever reason, lied his a-- off.”
And here is Jones defending his comments to CNN saying that Trump intentionally padded his job savings estimates with 350 R&D jobs that were never leaving the country in the first place.
Meanwhile, Jones seemed to tone down the hostility in a subsequent CNN interview this morning saying that his steelworkers "thank [Trump] very much for getting involved and helping to save the 800 jobs that will remain here in Indianapolis."
"He's not listening to everything I've said. Anytime I've talked to the media, one of the first things I've said is I thank him very much for getting involved and helping to save the 800 jobs that will remain here in Indianapolis. The people, we are very grateful for what he did. So he's not listening to that."
Carrier union boss on Trump: “He didn’t tell the truth. He inflated the numbers and I called him out on it.” https://t.co/H2MnLKc6Mz
— Joshua Chavers (@JoshuaChavers) December 8, 2016
Seems Chuck may have discovered that while he was "with her," many of his members were not.