Former President Donald Trump released a campaign ad Thursday on his Truth Social account blasting President Biden’s auto policies and accusing his administration of spending “billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing electric cars for rich people.” He made a direct appeal to the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which is currently locked in contentious negotiations with the “Big Three” car manufacturers, General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., and Stellantis NV.

Trump got straight to the point as he addressed the camera:

Joe Biden is waging war on the US auto industry with a series of crippling mandates designed to force Americans into expensive electric cars. That’s just what you want [sarcasm].

Even as thousands of electric cars are piling up on car lots, all unsold. This ridiculous green New Deal crusade is causing car prices to skyrocket while setting the stage for the destruction of American auto production.

Indeed, many consumers are not interested in buying an electric car, and their reasons include: “range anxiety; time required to charge; power outage and grid concerns; lack of servicers for repairs and maintenance; and inadequate performance in extreme temperatures.”

Watch:

Trump continued to savage Biden for his extreme policies in the roughly 3-minute-long video, noting that most families couldn’t afford an EV even if they wanted one:

These extreme left-wing policies are a disaster for families and consumers and are one of the main reasons the average cost of a new car is now over $50,000 [true].

Absolutely outrageous, and there’s never been such a price before. These exorbitant prices are despite the fact that Biden is spending billions and billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing electric cars for rich people, while normal Americans can’t afford to use one—nor do they even want to.

Trump appealed directly to UAW union workers and specifically called for laborers in several key battleground states—Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and the Carolinas—to support his 2024 campaign for president.

And I hope United Auto Workers is listening to this because I think you better endorse Trump, because I’m gonna grow your business and they are destroying your business. They are absolutely destroying your business.

He also talked about trade deals such as NAFTA and the TPP and how his trade policies were far better for the manufacturing sector than Biden’s. He closed with a pitch:

…if you want to have an auto industry, you need to defeat Joe Biden—he’s a corrupt president—and reelect President Donald Trump.

Biden, meanwhile, was bumbling and stumbling around a shipyard touting “Bidenomics,” as my colleague Nick Arama reported. He made his own pitch to union workers, but it didn’t go well. “[Billionaires] didn’t build the middle class; they didn’t build America,” he said. “The middle class was built by the middle class. And the unions built the middle class.”

The middle class built the middle class—um, what? Is Kamala Harris writing his speeches now?

He then went on to brag about wind farms planned for the Gulf of Mexico. I’d frankly be surprised if a whole lot of shipyard workers were fired up by this news.

Late Thursday afternoon, Biden’s administration seemed to prove Trump’s point that his policies hurt the little guy as the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released dramatic new regulations and heightened fees for oil and gas producers. Said Holly Hopkins, a vice president at the American Petroleum Institute:

Amidst a global energy crisis, this action from the Department of the Interior is yet another attempt to add even more barriers to future energy production, increases uncertainty for producers and may further discourage oil and natural gas investment.

This is a concerning approach from an administration that has repeatedly acted to restrict essential energy development.

Trump’s right on this one—Biden’s energy and auto policies have been an utter disaster for the middle class and all “normal Americans” (his term). Unfortunately, as we’ve seen, most major unions will continue to blindly endorse anybody with a “D” by their name, even when it’s not necessarily in the best economic interest of their workers. It’s a shame.

New polling conducted by @MorningConsult shows that 90% of voters agree that natural gas & oil play an important role in strengthening the U.S. economy. It also shows that voters believe lawmakers should consider economic importance when assessing energy policies & regulations. pic.twitter.com/obfJQnyeQu

— American Petroleum Institute (@APIenergy) July 19, 2023