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EXCLUSIVE: The Biden-Harris campaign is using former President Donald Trump’s own words against him in a bid to recapture one major voting block that helped secure his 2016 election victory, as well as boosted him in certain states during the 2020 election.

Union workers, who were largely traditional Democrat voters prior to Trump’s rise, were a big factor in pushing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan toward the former president, and are being viewed as major players ahead of the 2024 elections amid the grip of labor disputes and their effects on the economy.

In partnership with the Democratic National Committee, the Biden-Harris campaign on Friday launched the opening salvo in a strategy that it hopes will win back those workers and propel President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to another four-year term.

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That first shot appeared in the form of a video on “Biden HQ,” the campaign’s social media rapid response network, which highlights Trump’s past statements about unions, including describing them as “dues-sucking people.” The descriptor is one he is known to have used on occasion, including once in 2019 when referring to a firefighters union that endorsed Biden’s 2020 campaign.

“[Unions] get their little 5%, they get another 2%, they get another 3%, 4%. Then, all of a sudden, they’re making more money than the people that own the company,” another audio clip of Trump says in the video, followed by what appears to be him calling wage negotiations a “terrible thing.”

“Donald Trump: Anti-union. Anti-worker,” the video adds.

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Biden-Harris campaign Rapid Response Director Ammar Moussa told Fox News Digital that “Donald Trump sees the world from Park Avenue, not an assembly plant floor, and it shows.”

“While Trump looks down on workers and gives handouts to big corporations and his rich friends, Joe Biden isn’t just saying that he’ll always have workers’ backs – he’s proving it. After President Biden made history by standing with striking autoworkers, unions have notched historic wins and even non-unionized auto companies are taking note, increasing workers’ wages,” Moussa said. 

“This is what happens when you have a president who cares about working people: Workers win,” he added.

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According to Fox News exit poll data from the 2016 presidential election, Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton won union households by eight points. That was a 10-point drop from former President Obama’s total in his 2012 election victory, and the lowest union support for a Democrat in two decades.

In 2020, Fox News exit poll data showed Biden winning back some of that support, garnering 56% of union households to Trump’s 42%, but the latter still outperformed in some states. The percentages were the same for voters who said they were union members.

Polls have largely shown a hypothetical rematch between Trump and Biden to be in a dead heat as both face the threat of primary challenges and third-party presidential bids.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Capitol Hill is breathing a sigh of relief as lawmakers jet back to their home states for the Thanksgiving holiday after a grueling 10 weeks full of late-night votes and, toward the end, increasingly testy exchanges. 

It’s tested the mettle of newly minted Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., whose leadership victory temporarily appeared to unite what’s been a highly divided House GOP Conference this year.

But months-old fractures, particularly over government spending, have continued to widen three weeks into Johnson’s speakership – despite scoring some key victories so early in his tenure.

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Johnson managed to usher through the House an Israel aid bill without President Biden’s request for additional billions toward Ukraine, Taiwan and his own border policies, and offsetting the $14.3 billion aid with money the president allocated toward the IRS.

He also led Congress to avoid a government shutdown by passing a “clean” extension of last year’s federal funding along bipartisan lines ahead of the Friday fiscal deadline. 

It was the latter move that helped fuel a rebellion within his own party on Thursday – from both hardline conservatives who felt betrayed by the measure and moderates who were sick of being forced into politically difficult votes by the right flank’s demands.

HOUSE ENDS WEEK BEHIND SCHEDULE WITH DAYS UNTIL POSSIBLE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

The tricky dynamics preceded Johnson’s speakership – and fueled ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster – but don’t appear to be easing yet. 

A group of 19 conservatives and moderate Republicans joined Democrats to tank a procedural vote on the spending bill dealing with the Departments of Justice and Commerce on Wednesday. Before this year, such a vote – known as a rule vote – had not failed in two decades. 

House Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry, R-Pa., called the spending bill “weak” and added, “We want the message to be clear to the American people and to our leadership. We are done with the failure theater here.”

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., one of the moderate Republicans who voted against the rule, argued it would not get enough votes to pass anyway and “would cut important funding to my district’s Law Enforcement.”

“I voted ‘no’ on its rule because we need to stop wasting time with doomed bills & draft ones which can pass the House & don’t disproportionately hurt my district,” he wrote on social platform X.

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Similar divisions forced House GOP leaders to reschedule and scuttle other key spending bills multiple times over the last two weeks.

“I think there’s a honeymoon period here. I’m not sure how long it lasts,” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said last week after the second of two spending bills was pulled. “With what’s going on on the floor today, I think that indicates the honeymoon might be shorter than we thought.”

Meanwhile, tensions over McCarthy’s ouster last month reached yet another boiling point this week when Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., one of eight GOP lawmakers who voted to remove McCarthy as speaker, accused the ex-leader of elbowing him in the kidney while passing him in the hall.

McCarthy denied attacking Burchett and said he only accidentally bumped into him.

The House returns on Nov. 28 after the Thanksgiving break.

The House had been in session at least part of every week since Sept. 12 when they returned from August recess. A planned two-week district work period in October was canceled due to needing more time to work on government funding. 

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., succeeded in his efforts this week to call a formal House-Senate conference to come to an agreement on the military defense bill also known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), his office said Thursday.

Wicker’s victory, reportedly discussed behind closed doors, comes as the Senate also passed the House’s government spending patch to extend the deadlines to January and February.

The conference will likely be sometime after Thanksgiving, a Wicker aide told Fox News Digital. The aide also said if the conference process hadn’t started this week, “it wouldn’t have happened this year” due to other priorities. 

SENATE GREENLIGHTS MILITARY DEFENSE SPENDING BILL, PAVING WAY FOR HIGH-STAKES CLASH WITH GOP-LED HOUSE

“Then the senator heard from several of his colleagues that that was something that they were not OK with it,” the aide said.

Wicker, the leading Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, considered Thursday morning one of his last chances to trigger a meeting between the two chambers to finalize one package.

The Senate approved its version of the annual military defense bill with bipartisan support in July in an 86-11 vote, granting authorization for $886 billion over the next year to bolster national defense right before the chamber’s five-week August recess.

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Notably, in the Senate’s passage of the policy, military personnel will see a 5.2% pay increase, $9.1 billion to foster competitiveness with China, investments in advancing military drone technology and $300 million in aid to Ukraine.

The Senate’s bill avoids addressing the issues of abortion and transgender services. However, it does acknowledge the concerns expressed by Republicans about what they call an excessive influence of progressive policies within the Pentagon.

As such, Senate Republicans were able to get provisions in the policy that prevent mandating the inclusion of preferred pronouns in official correspondence as well as a halt on diversity quota hires.

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Coming to an agreement on a package will prove to be a messy feat as the two chambers are worlds apart.

Just two weeks prior to the Senate’s passage, the House approved its version of the bill, which incorporated several Republican amendments aimed at dismantling the Pentagon’s abortion policy for service members seeking procedures out of state as well as restricting transgender-affirming treatments.

President Biden has previously indicated he would not sign a package filled with hard-line GOP priorities like what’s included in the House’s version.

U.S. energy experts are warning of the economic and national security implications of President Biden’s pact with China this week to move towards shutting down fossil fuel production in favor of green energy.

The State Department announced this week it had struck a deal with its Chinese counterparts pledging to “accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation” with green energy sources like wind and solar power. The nations, which account for nearly half of global greenhouse gas emissions, also agreed to “deepen policy exchanges” on reducing carbon emissions in various sectors, like power, industry, buildings and transportation, across their economies.

But the agreement — in which the nations further pledged to “sufficiently accelerate renewable energy deployment in their respective economies through 2030” — was criticized over its potential impact on U.S. consumers. Experts also noted that China has rarely followed through on international accords and stands to financially benefit from such an agreement since it controls much of the world’s green energy supply chain.

“The agreement speaks heavily about advancing — doubling down and tripling down on renewables, wind and solar. The majority of them are made in China,” Daniel Turner, the founder and executive director of Power The Future, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

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“So, you’re basically writing an agreement that guarantees China a customer and guarantees their manufacturing sector decades of purchasing. Of course China would love this agreement. And their obligations — they’ll just ignore that. They’ve ignored every other obligation,” Turner added. “It is basically guaranteeing China decades of wealth, guaranteeing America is going to buy their products.”

In addition, the U.S. and China pledged under the agreement Tuesday to each advance five large-scale carbon capture, utilization and storage projects by the end of the decade. Carbon capture is a nascent and expensive technology that is designed to catch a power plant’s emissions before they could enter the atmosphere, but it hasn’t been deployed at any power plant nationwide.

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The agreement was finalized during Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s meeting with Chinese Special Envoy for Climate Change Xie Zhenhua in Sunnylands, California, last week. And it came shortly before Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco.

“The cooperative initiatives outlined by State Department will create make-work for bureaucrats, subsidies for rent-seekers, photo ops for local politicians, and new opportunities for Chinese agents of influence and industrial spies,” Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Marlo Lewis told Fox News Digital.

“The effect on climate change, if any, will be negative, as the ‘cooperation’ will nudge the United States closer to Beijing-style central planning, production quotas, and groupthink,” he continued.

Overall, while the U.S. is the largest global producer of oil and gas which still drives every major industry from transportation and power to manufacturing and construction, Chinese companies have established a major foothold in green energy markets.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), for example, China produces about 75% of all lithium-ion batteries, a key component of electric vehicles (EV), worldwide. The nation also boasts 70% of production capacity for cathodes and 85% for anodes, two key parts of such batteries. 

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In addition, more than 50% of lithium, cobalt and graphite processing and refining capacity is located in China, the IEA data showed. Those three critical minerals, in addition to copper and nickel, are vital for EV batteries and other green energy technologies. Chinese investment firms have also been aggressive in purchasing stakes in African mines in recent years to ensure a firm control over mineral production.

China also continues to dominate the global solar supply chain even as Western nations attempt to increase domestic manufacturing capabilities. According to a July 2022 IEA report, China has a greater than 80% share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panel manufacturing. China further produces a staggering 95% of all global polysilicon, ingot and wafer supplies necessary for solar products.

“After ESG extremists like Larry Fink met with Chinese Dictator Xi Jinping this week, the Biden Administration reaffirmed its commitment to China to push climate policies that will effectively destroy the U.S. energy industry in favor of green energy initiatives that rely on China’s production of solar panels and batteries,” Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, an advocacy group, told Fox News Digital.

“Consumers are fed up with EV mandates, gas appliance bans, and other climate initiatives the Biden Administration continues to peddle,” he said. “Clearly climate alarmism remains a higher priority to President Biden than ensuring American consumers have access to affordable energy and consumer goods. Consumers’ Research will continue to call out these ideologically-driven policies that hurt American consumers while helping the Chinese Communist Party.”

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While China has established a stranglehold of green energy supply chains, it has also led a massive expansion of coal power to sustain its massive economy. In 2022, the nation permitted a whopping 106 gigawatts of new coal power capacity, roughly quadrupling the amount permitted in 2021, an analysis published by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor showed.

According to the American Geosciences Institute, burning coal produces more carbon emissions compared to burning any other fossil fuel. Coal power can have as much as twice the carbon footprint as natural gas.

China already accounts for about 27% of total global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Rhodium Group. The nation’s emissions output is equivalent to triple the total of the U.S., which is the world’s second-largest emitter.

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“The Sunnylands agreement is nothing more than political sop from Communist China to try to help Biden and Kerry politically, and to keep the America-hurting climate hoax going,” Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, told Fox News Digital. “The agreement does not bind China to cut emissions or to do anything else of importance.”

“But keeping the climate hoax alive is very important to China for three reasons: 1) climate spending and climate regulations hurt the U.S. economy and help the Chinese economy; 2) mandates for green technology deepen U.S. dependence on China for that technology; and 3) both of the aforementioned compromise US national security and further China’s goal of becoming the lone global superpower by 2049,” Milloy continued.

And Jason Isaac, the CEO and founder of The American Energy Institute, told Fox News Digital that the agreement was “laughable” since it states China remains committed to the 2015 Paris Accords.

“Not a single country complies with the Paris Agreement, not even France. The Paris Agreement is based on the false premise that CO2, a trace gas that makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere, is causing catastrophic warming,” Isaac said. “It’s not, and China knows it. That’s why the global consumption of coal in 2022 increased by 9%, and China built two coal plants per week to generate affordable, reliable electricity.”

“Xi knows that the grid in America is getting crushed under the weight of a so-called energy transition. Over 80% of our reliable thermal generation from natural gas and coal will age-out in the next two decades,” he added. “Instead of aging out, we need to build new generation more than ever.” 

“Yet, the current administration is making new, reliable electric generation construction nearly impossible. Biden’s bailout of China has turned our foreign policy to ‘China first, America last.'”

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Biden administration has confirmed that it has the authority to revoke the visas of foreign nationals who are living in the U.S. but who support terrorist groups such as Hamas – just as Republicans are urging the government to crack down on pro-Hamas foreigners.

In a letter to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the State Department confirmed that Hamas is a designated foreign terrorist organization and that the State Dept. has the power to revoke visas. 

“The Department of State also has broad authority under the [Immigration and Nationality Act] to revoke visas,” the agency said. “We exercise the authority when there is information or evidence indicating a visa holder may be ineligible for a U.S. visa.”

Additionally, it said that when it receives “derogatory information” indicating ineligibility, it takes “immediate action” which can include revocation of visas.

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“Even after issuance of a visa, the Department of State works closely with the Department of Homeland Security and other partner agencies to ensure every visa applicant is continuously screened to ensure they remain eligible for travel to the United States,” it told Rubio.

The department also said it “shares your outrage regarding Hamas’ brutal attack against the State of Israel and its citizens.”

“State Department confirms they have the power to revoke the visas of Hamas supporters and deport them. Now they need to do it,” Rubio said in response.

Additionally, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the department has broad authority to revoke visas “when there is any indication that an applicant poses a threat to U.S. national security, including when the applicant is potentially ineligible for a visa under any of the INA’s security-related grounds of ineligibility.” 

“For example, the Department uses that revocation authority if there is reason to suspect that an individual has provided material support to a foreign terrorist organization,” they said. 

“Maintaining robust screening standards for visa applicants is a dynamic practice that must adapt to emerging threats,” they said. ” We are constantly working to find mechanisms to improve our screening processes and to support legitimate travel and immigration to the United States while protecting U.S. citizens.” 

As for whether any visas have been revoked, the spokesperson said that visa records are confidential under U.S. law and it therefore cannot discuss specific visa cases.

“National security is our top priority when adjudicating visa applications,” the agency said.

Those answers come a week after Rubio quizzed DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on the matter, noting language in statute that those who espouse terrorist views are to be denied visas. Mayorkas said that espousing or supporting terrorist activisty could be the basis for the revocation and deportation of an individual. 

“I think it makes sense that if you can’t get a visa because you espouse terrorist views or endorse terrorist views, then if you have a visa and you do that while a visitor, we’re talking about visitors to the United States, that visa should be canceled,” Rubio said.

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“I would agree,” Mayorkas responded.

The agreement puts the Biden administration on the same page as many Republicans, who have urged the government to revoke visas if foreign nationals have espoused pro-Hamas views. 

The issue has been zeroed in on by some lawmakers in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel, which has led some to call for greater restrictions on both illegal immigration and legal immigration as a consequence.

Nineteen lawmakers last month wrote to the administration calling specifically for the revocation of student visas from those involved in protests that glorify the terror group.

“Foreign students contribute much to our society, but individuals who advocate terrorist violence against civilians are not welcome here. If a visa was issued before DHS uncovers evidence of a visa-holder’s ineligibility under INA s.212(a)(3)B), in the interest of national security, the individual in question should immediately have their visa revoked and face expedited deportation proceedings,” they say.

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Rubio has also led a resolution calling for the government to “revoke visas and initiate deportation proceedings for any foreign national who has endorsed or espoused the terrorist activities of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah,” or other terrorist groups.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was blasted this week after its administrators acknowledged the university stopped short of expelling anti-Israel student protesters because of “visa issues.”

With less than two months to go until the Iowa caucuses, former President Donald Trump remains the commanding front-runner in the state that leads off the Republican presidential nomination calendar.

But a prominent social conservative leader in Iowa — a state where evangelical voters play an outsized role in Republican politics — said he believes Trump is still beatable.

“You’re seeing the field naturally coalesce. It’s getting smaller and smaller,” Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of The Family Leader, a politically active and influential social conservative group, told Fox News Digital as he pointed to the winnowing of the 2024 GOP presidential field.

Noting that the former president’s under 50% support in the latest polls in Iowa, Vander Plaats predicted that Trump’s backing might be as low as 35% by the time of the Jan. 15 caucuses.

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“There’s definitely a shot that the former president can be beat here,” he argued.

Vander Plaats, who’s likely to endorse one of Trump’s rivals in the coming weeks, was interviewed on the eve of Friday’s Family Leader presidential Thanksgiving forum. 

Joining Vander Plaats for what’s being described as a “family discussion” will be Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramawamy. Haley and DeSantis are currently battling for a distant second place behind Trump.

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Trump was also invited to Friday’s forum, but is not attending. He also skipped the Family Leader’s summit in July, which attracted nearly the entire field of presidential contenders.

Vander Plaats, who’s long had a rocky relationship with Trump and who has argued that it’s time for new conservative leadership, said that the former president’s “absence communicates a lot to our base.”

“It’s a forum he’d want to take advantage of and remind our base of all the good things he did while he was president,” he said.

Vander Plaats reiterated that his likely endorsement “will be sometime after the forum and before Christmas.”

While there’s the possibility that the endorsement could come from the Family Leader, Vander Plaats said “my guess is…it’s a personal endorsement and not a ministry endorsement.”

And he said that his support would be much more than a one-day announcement, emphasizing that “I’ll do whatever I can to make the endorsement stick and see what happens.”

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In a major boost for DeSantis, who has staked his campaign on winning in Iowa, the Florida governor landed the endorsement earlier this month of Gov. Kim Reynolds, who’s very popular among Hawkeye State Republicans. Reynolds’ backing helped DeSantis alter a negative narrative.

Vander Plaats, who has repeatedly showed praise for DeSantis this year, said the Reynolds endorsement of the Florida governor “will weigh in on my discernment. But that won’t make my endorsement.” 

Vander Plaats backed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2008, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania in 2012, and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in 2016 — all three of whom went on to win the Iowa caucuses, but failed to capture the GOP presidential nomination.

Ahead of Friday’s forum, Trump’s political allies have dismissed the importance of a Vander Plaats endorsement.

A recent memo from veteran Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who among other things conducts surveys for the Trump-aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., argued that a Vander Plaats endorsement would have “no significant impact” on the caucuses.

Pointing to polling he conducted in September, Fabrizio charged that “while the DeSantis camp will try and spin that a Vander Plaats endorsement will revive their sputtering and shrinking campaign, cold hard data tells a much different story.” 

Asked about the criticism, Vander Plaats told Fox News “my endorsement means one vote. Beyond that, we’ll see what happens.”

But he added “I think their obsession with my endorsement probably would indicate that they’re more fearful of it than they should be.”

Trump’s allies also call into question $95,000 in payments earlier this year from the DeSantis campaign, and a super PAC and nonprofit group aligned with the Florida governor, to the Family Leader. 

The funds paid for three pages of ads for the campaign and the aligned groups in a booklet distributed by the Family Leader at their July presidential forum, which drew some 2,000 social conservative Iowans.

The big question going forward is whether the Reynolds backing of DeSantis and the pending endorsement by Vander Plaats can make a dent in Trump’s commanding lead over the rest of the field.

Nicole Schlinger, a longtime Iowa-based strategist with close ties to evangelicals, argued that endorsements only go so far.

“I think what matters more to Iowa caucus goers than anything is meeting with the candidates and getting their questions answered about their policy positions,” she told Fox News. “Endorsements, whether it’s the Governor or Bob Vander Plaats, can shine a light on the campaign, and then it’s up to the candidate to seal the deal.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.