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It didn’t come as too big of a surprise last week when Republican presidential hopefuls responded to the United Auto Workers’ strike by criticizing labor unions. The conflict between the GOP and labor is not new, so the admonishments were predictable.
But the details of the candidates’ rhetoric mattered. Former Ambassador Nikki Haley, for example, appeared on Fox News and complained about President Joe Biden being a “pro-union president.” It seemed like the sort of comments that might appear in a video from Biden’s own political team — and sure enough, it soon after became a video from Biden’s own political team.
A day later, Team Biden was eager to remind voters about Donald Trump’s far-right record on reproductive rights, so it released a video featuring the former president’s own comments on the subject.
Earlier this month, in the first Republican presidential primary debate, Haley also offered some criticisms of Donald Trump’s fiscal record. That, too, seemed like the sort of thing Team Biden wanted voters to hear — so it created a video featuring this rhetoric, too.
Perhaps the pièce de resistance came earlier in the summer, when Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene delivered a speech about the Democratic president’s progressive governing vision, which she meant as criticism, but which Team Biden put to good use by quoting her verbatim.
As the 2024 cycle advances, don’t be surprised if Biden and his team continue to let Republicans write their campaign ads for them.