Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) on Tuesday chided Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) for “sneering” at Kentucky Senate Republican candidate Nate Morris for touting his working class and union background.
During a Kentucky industry forum on October 29, Barr attacked Morris for talking about how he comes from a working-class union background.
“There are some candidates that say they come from a union background or union family. I’m very proud to say that I’m an annual supporter of the Employee Rights Act,” Barr said.
Barr’s message did not sit well with Banks, who hails from a union factory worker background, as he described in his maiden speech touting Trump’s America First Trade policies. The Hoosier senator wrote:
As the son of a union factory worker and having grown up in a working-class family myself, we should be celebrating the fact that President Trump transformed the GOP from being the party of the country club, to being the party of the American worker. Sneering at people for being proud of their working-class upbringing sends the exact wrong message.
Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle described this move as a “major fumble:”
Morris responded, proudly backing how President Donald Trump has moved to increase the Republican tent by including union workers.
“I’m not going to apologize for growing up in a working-class family and I think it’s a good thing that President Trump has transformed the GOP into the party of the American worker,” Morris said.
Morris continued:
I saw with my own eyes what happens to workers and their families when politicians in both parties ship their jobs overseas and allow unfettered immigration into our country to drive down their wages. When the wages stagnated and the jobs got shipped overseas, the fentanyl came into communities like mine and families were torn apart.
…
My opponent, Andy Barr was a man born to the manner on third base. He started out in life in one of America’s most exclusive country clubs rearing him loyalty to the American ruling class. He never struggled financially. He never knew what it was like to scrap and claw to survive. He never saw the pain caused by career politicians gutting the American working-class. He never created a single job in his life. He was handed everything he has on a silver platter.
He sneers at working-class union men and women because he has nothing in common with them. It’s the same reason why he smears those of us opposed to amnesty as “nativists” because he doesn’t understand the pain caused by the pro-amnesty policies that him and his politician buddies supported for decades.
Morris added, “But just like his “mentor” Mitch McConnell, Andy Barr wants to reverse that and take us back to being the party of country club elites…and I will always fight to never let that happen.”
Morris has backed Trump’s tariff policies, while Barr has criticized the president’s tariff policies, saying that the ideal tariff level is “zero.”
Other MAGA supporters attacked Barr’s comments.
