AFL-CIO president backs Trump’s infrastructure plan

The president of the country’s largest labor organization, a vocal opponent of President Trump during last year’s campaign, said on Wednesday that he is encouraged by the White House’s proposed infrastructure plan.

“A trillion dollars is the right magnitude to be talking about,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said on Fox Business Network the day after Trump called for the spending package in his first address to Congress. “We think it’s more. The Society of American Civil Engineers think it’s more like $3 trillion.”

“He’s talking in the right ballpark,” Trumka added. “Infrastructure, it’s a three- or four-time winner for all of us.”

{mosads}Trump has called for a massive overhaul of the country’s roads, bridges and airports. During an address before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, the president urged lawmakers to pass legislation approving $1 trillion in infrastructure spending.

Such a measure, while expensive, has already won some bipartisan support, and Democrats have expressed a willingness to back an infrastructure overhaul.

The AFL-CIO opposed Trump during the 2016 presidential election, endorsing his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. 

Trumka himself was particularly critical of Trump, calling him “a bigot” full of “baloney and bluster.”

“From his anti-American proposal to ban Muslims to his horrendous comments about women and immigrants, Trump is running on hate,” the union leader said a year ago.

But Trumka on Wednesday expressed a willingness to work with Trump, saying that the president has the chance to stand up for working Americans.

“Workers just feel like they’ve been left behind. And they wanted him to rewrite the rules of the economy, not for the rich, not for the wealthy, not for corporate America, not for Wall Street, but for them.”