After Trump's Latest 'Petty' Tweets Against Union President, Sane Minds Urge Him To Stop

By Stephen Gossett in News on Dec 8, 2016 4:45PM

Stop us if you think you’ve heard this one before. Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out on Twitter against someone who had the gall to disagree with him.

Trump’s latest target was Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, who you might remember for having criticized Trump’s deal with Carrier. (“But he got up there and, for whatever reason, he lied his ass off,” was Jones’ on-point phrase.) Always the bigger man, Trump graciously let it roll like water off the ducks back, in the manner befitting a president-elect. Just kidding. He blurted out yet more petty:

“My first thought was, ‘Well, that’s not very nice,’ ” Jones told The Washington Post on Wednesday night after a friend called with news of the tweet. (Jones has a flip phone, so he mercifully didn’t see the tweets.) “Then, 'Well, I might not sleep much tonight.”

Sure enough, he started getting threatening calls, although he said he kept calm and unperturbed. “Nothing that says they’re gonna kill me, but, you know, you better keep your eye on your kids,” Jones said on MSNBC. “We know what car you drive. Things along those lines.”

“I’ve been doing this job for 30 years, and I’ve heard everything from people who want to burn my house down or shoot me,” he added. “So I take it with a grain of salt and I don’t put a lot of faith in that, and I’m not concerned about it and I’m not getting anybody involved. I can deal with people that make stupid statements and move on.”

Earlier this week, Jones called BS on Trump’s claim that the Carrier deal would save more than 1,000 jobs that would have otherwise gone to Mexico.
The Post reported:

“Carrier, [Jones] said, had agreed to preserve 800 production jobs in Indiana. (Carrier confirmed that number.) The union leader said Trump appeared to be taking credit for rescuing 350 engineering positions that were never scheduled to leave. Five hundred fifty of his members, he said, were still losing their jobs. And the company was still collecting millions of dollars in tax breaks.”

As you probably noticed, Trump has a pretty habitual way of publicly shaming and chastising those who press against his policies. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich certainly noticed. After the Jones debacle, Reich delivered a passionate, full-throated plea for Trump to muzzle the outbursts, also citing Trump’s bashing of Alec Baldwin for his Trump impersonation and his lashing out against multiple journalists.

“Let me just say with all due respect, Mr. Trump, you are president-elect of the United States, you are looking and acting as if you are mean and petty, thin-skinned and vindictive. Stop this,” Reich said.

“This is not a fireside chat. This is not what FDR did. This isn’t lifting people up. This is actually penalizing people for speaking their minds.”

The emotion was roundly seconded on Thursday morning.