Teamsters president Sean O’Brien accused then-Vice President Kamala Harris of pressuring his union for an endorsement on Tuesday, recalling a tense meeting where she reportedly warned the union it “better get on board.”
O’Brien shared these details during an interview with The Free Press founder and editor Bari Weiss on her Honestly podcast, discussing who genuinely represents the American working class amid today’s shifting political landscape.
He recounted a particularly uncomfortable moment when a Teamsters leader encountered the 2024 presidential candidate in a photo line:
“So, Joan goes in the line and Joan says, ‘I’m Joan Corey. I’m a vice president with the Teamsters Union,’ and [Harris] pointed her finger at Joan and said, ‘Teamsters better get on board,’ and so Joan says, ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Yeah, Teamsters better get on board. I don’t know why you haven’t endorsed me yet.’ So she comes back, and she tells me this, and I’m like, ‘The nerve!’”
O’Brien, who has been openly critical of the Democratic Party before, also alleged that when Harris met with the union’s executive board—who had prepared 16 questions—she answered only four.
“She really didn’t answer the questions, and then on the fourth question my chief of staff slides me an index card and says, ‘This is the last question. She’s not answering anymore,’ because she wanted to, like, pontificate and give her speech of why the country is the way it is, why we should endorse her.”
Paraphrasing Harris’ closing remarks, O’Brien said she essentially told union leadership, “‘Listen, I’m going to win with you or without you.’”
“And it was such a smug answer, like, okay,” he added. “That turned the majority of the people in that room off her.” He further described the post-meeting reaction among union leaders, noting many were put off by her smug demeanor and body language.
“You could smell it a mile away,” he said.
The Teamsters ultimately decided not to endorse any candidate in the 2024 presidential race—a decision that drew criticism both inside and outside the union.
“Once we announced that there was going to be no endorsement, that’s when all the keyboard warriors came out and the attacks from the DSA and, you know, my friends that were allegedly my friends that were, you know, high-ranking senators of the Democratic Party,” O’Brien said. “Once I spoke at the RNC, then I was, you know, no good.”
Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
