How Biden helped end a port strike that threatened Democrats in November
With early morning Zoom calls and a surprising ultimatum, the White House brain trust averted a potential economic disaster weeks before the election.
It was a stark ultimatum, delivered by President Joe Biden’s most senior aide.
At 5:30 a.m. Thursday, before the sun had risen above his Washington home, White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients was on a Zoom call with two Cabinet secretaries and the executives of the shipping companies negotiating with workers who had gone on strike at critical docks along the East and Gulf coasts, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Then in a surprising move, as the call was wrapping up, Zients told the board members of the U.S. Maritime Alliance that he was going to tell Biden in about an hour that they had agreed to propose a new offer to the union. By that point, the shipping executives had agreed to do no such thing. Zients was saying they would.
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Employers added 254,000 jobs in September, reflecting strong gains as election nears
The U.S. unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1 percent.
U.S. employers added 254,000 jobs and the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1 percent in September, signaling signs of strength in the labor market heading into the height of the election season.
The last several months of steady job growth have been plenty enough to keep the American labor market firmly out of recession territory, economists say, especially as GDP growth remains hardy, productivity is strong and consumers continue to spend.
It should be telling that every time there's good news about the American economy, the Republicans get a sad.
And BTW - Harris has been gaining on Trump in the polls that try to gauge how we feel and what we think about the economy.
The next few days might tell us a very interesting story.
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