Harris meets with Teamsters as union nears endorsement decision

Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said Monday that the powerful union could issue a presidential endorsement in the coming days, after hosting Vice President Kamala Harris for a closed-door roundtable.

“We are going to look at any and all options, and I can’t commit to what we’re going to do,” he told reporters at the union’s D.C. headquarters.

Harris left immediately after the meeting without talking to reporters.

O’Brien said the union is wrapping up polling of its membership ahead of an executive board meeting on Wednesday. He said those results will also be publicly released.

“There’s no secret that the Teamsters union is very different than most unions, and I mean that with total respect; we represent everybody from airline pilots and zookeepers, O’Brien said. “We don’t just represent registered Democrats, we represent registered Republicans and independents, and so we have to take [that] into consideration.”

The union’s million-plus membership is one of the largest in the country and it has long been a bedrock of the Democratic coalition.

But it switched up its process under O’Brien, courting presidential candidates of all stripes — including former President Donald Trump — and has remained uncommitted as most other unions lined up behind the Democratic ticket.

O’Brien said that open-ended stance — which has garnered notable opposition inside the union — has been a “complete distraction, but it’s necessary because we need to make sure we make the right decisions” given the Teamsters’ diverse membership.

“Our sole focus is representing those workers, negotiating strong contracts and organizing new members,” he said.

O’Brien has drawn criticism for speaking at this summer’s Republican National Convention — though he said his anti-corporate message polled overwhelmingly well with members — and was snubbed when he solicited a similar role at the Democratic convention a few weeks later.

A member of the Teamsters’ board has challenged O’Brien and the volunteer-led Teamsters National Black Caucus got out in front of leadership by backing Harris ahead of the DNC.

On Monday, O’Brien reiterated that President Joe Biden has been “great for unions” and lamented Trump’s recent comments with mogul Elon Musk, in which the former president flippantly discussed retaliating against striking workers by firing them — an illegal practice.

O’Brien said the Teamsters asked the same questions of Harris that it did of Biden and other candidates and that the pair gave some similar responses.

“There wasn’t a whole lot of difference,” he said.

The Teamsters have focused on candidates’ support for the PRO Act , a sweeping set of union-friendly changes to federal labor law, as well as bankruptcy reform and antitrust policies in its roundtable meetings.