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Teamsters President: ‘No Regrets’ After Fiery Speech Draws Right-Wing Criticism

» 87 comments

Updated: September 5, 2011, 6:30PM

Teamsters union president James Hoffa would say it all again if he could, he told TPM Monday.

Hoffa riled up Fox News and the right wing Monday with a Labor Day speech in Detroit in which he called Republican members of Congress “sons of bitches” and said union workers are ready to “go to war” with the tea party next year and “take out” Republicans at the ballot box.

Hoffa said he’d say the exact same words all over again.

“I would because I believe it,” he said. “They’ve declared war on us. We didn’t declare war on them, they declared war on us. We’re fighting back. The question is, who started the war?”

The speech came shortly before President Obama took the stage in Detroit — and Hoffa’s remarks certainly overshadowed Obama’s on Fox. But the Teamsters chief said he was just matching fired-up conservative rhetoric when it comes to organized labor and Obama with some fired-up rhetoric of his own.

Presidential hopeful Herman Cain decried the speech as “name-calling” in an interview on Fox News shortly after Hoffa’s remarks — which were repeatedly looped on the network — but the union leader dismissed criticisms like that one as total hypocrisy.

“How is that different than Mitch McConnell saying he wants to take out Barack Obama?” Hoffa said.

Progressive Fox News watchdog Media Matters For America charged that the clip had been deceptively edited in Fox’s re-airing of it.

Hoffa said his tough tone reflects the nature of the forces massed against unions — and tells the truth about the dangers faced by organized labor and their allies in the progressive movement during the Republican ascendancy.

“The right wing — the tea party, backed by the Koch brothers, the Chamber of Commerce and the Walton family are underwriting, you know, bills to take away collective bargaining,” Hoffa said. “Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor want to take away Social Security and Medicaid.”
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“The answer to that is, people that do that, is we’re going to declare war on them,” he added.

The Tea Party Express joined the conservative clamor against Hoffa’s speech, and called on Obama to condemn it. Spokesperson Levi Russell said Hoffa’s rhetoric was meaningless in the current politics of the country.

“Jimmy Hoffa is a has-been relic stuck in a former era. His idea of freedom and liberty involves forcibly extorting union dues from their membership, and applying them to whichever crooked politician has his hand out,” Russell told TPM. “These big union thugs are on the wrong side of history, which is why they lose every time they try to attack We the People.”

Even as they’ve said they’ll support Obama in the future, the president has come under increasing scrutiny from labor leaders recently. Hoffa readily joined the chorus, but said that labor’s focus should be on who could come into power in 2012, not who’s already in the White House.

“Well, I think all of us want to see [Obama] do more with regards to protecting collective bargaining,” Hoffa told TPM. “But certainly at this point, when we’re looking at Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, then certainly he’s the person that we have to work with and to fight for worker’s rights in this country.”

Ed Note: This post was updated to include the comments from Levi Russell.

Note – this post was written by Evan McMorris-Santoro for Talking Points Memo and reappears here via a content sharing agreement.

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  • Anonymous

    Calling the Tea Party and the extremist, right-wing nut job hardcore conservative, economy destroying Republicans SOBs is actually rather restrained. They deserve MUCH harsher descriptions.

  • fanofgrendel

    Remeber the good old days when Regan and Tip O’Neal could meet and have a drink after the Gipper took a bat and shoved it up the ass of the air traffic controllers union? Miss that civility.

  • Norbit

    Can we get this Mafioso union thug to campaign for Obama all of next year?
    Be sure to hit a lot of the right-to-work states, too.

    One more thing, when the unions say “be part of the family”, just what ‘family’ do they mean?
    LMAO!!

  • ROTFLMAO

    The RNC will pray every hour this Union Thug and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
    stay on TV often!

  • Anonymous

    Once a mobster, always a mobster. Bring it on Hoffa, your name recognition and association will do wonders for The Chicago Jesus.

  • Anonymous

    Being a liberal means never having to say your sorry.

  • Anonymous

    The air traffic controllers were committing a crime.

  • Anonymous

    Yeah, I’m glad you laid it right out too, ya fat bastard. Now come get some.

  • Anonymous

    Being a liberal means never having to say your sorry psycho.

  • ROTFLMAO

    Can you imagine how Al Shopton and Mr ED the Talking HORSES ASS going to be
    Shitting their pants tonight?
    It be—-
    HAPPY Shitting!

  • Obeezy

    Being a liberal means never having a brain

  • Anonymous

    Correction: Hoffa riled up ” real ” Americans with his calling for the murder of those ” real ” Americans by his fellow union thugs. 

    At the same time the Obama regime’s ” New un-American Douchebag Party ” including the ‘ Douchebag in Chief ‘ himself, who just happen to be in the audiences, whipped themselves into a strange cult like frenzy culminating in a chant of ” four more years ” for this jackass……..hopefully in federal prison, God willing.

  • Anonymous

    Give ‘em hell James! They think it’s Obama they are dealing with. 

  • RACE BAITING@6 RESIST WE MUCH!

    SH*T WE MUCH!! 

  • http://twitter.com/table_4_7 Lori Masucci

    Appeal to authority.  Many things have been a crime throughout the ages that were not wrong.  All of the founding fathers committed the crime of treason.  Everyone who hid a Jew from Nazis committed a crime.  It is not enough to say something is a crime.  You must also show how it is wrong.

  • Anonymous

    not all liberals are losers. but if you’re a loser, you’re probably a liberal…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jj-Wisniewski/100002654075475 Jj Wisniewski

    This is obviously unacceptable and Obama should have made a comment right after stepping up to the podium and in a respectable tone, given the fact that this his core of support, say that this is unacceptable. After his call for civiilty comments in 2010, he needs to walk to walk and not merely talk to talk. There is plenty of blame to go around from both sides of the isle. The nasty signs, spitting, and faggot comments coming from the tea party during the health care debate was not appropriate either. Just a few days ago, Joe Walsh, a tea party House member called Obama a liar and an idiot. There is plenty of room for disagreement, both sides just need to dial it down. I haven’t seen this type of behavior from either side since I became eligible to vote in 1964.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jj-Wisniewski/100002654075475 Jj Wisniewski

    This is obviously unacceptable and Obama should have made a comment right after stepping up to the podium and in a respectable tone, given the fact that this his core of support, say that this is unacceptable. After his call for civiilty comments in 2010, he needs to walk to walk and not merely talk to talk. There is plenty of blame to go around from both sides of the isle. The nasty signs, spitting, and faggot comments coming from the tea party during the health care debate was not appropriate either. Just a few days ago, Joe Walsh, a tea party House member called Obama a liar and an idiot. There is plenty of room for disagreement, both sides just need to dial it down. I haven’t seen this type of behavior from either side since I became eligible to vote in 1964.

  • Anonymous

    OK… it was wrong to hold the American flying public hostage for their own benefit. And please don’t lie to me and claim that isn’t what the air traffic controllers were doing.

  • Anonymous

    Hoffa almost seems proud to have taken Obama’s campaign and approvals down a notch.

  • Anonymous

    michigan GOP should raffle off some cement shoes in honor of jim’s dad bahahaha

  • Norbit

    Maybe they can get a spot on the Olbermann-Gore network.

  • Anonymous

    Perhaps he should write a book “Lessons From My Father” so he and Barry can do a book signing tour to rally the troops. Chicago Thugery at it’s finest. Connect the dots to the connected…. There are no coincidences.

  • http://twitter.com/burtfisher Burt Fisher

    “Words matter.” – Barack Obama
    “We’re going to declare war on them.” Jimmy Hoffa

  • Anonymous

    You don’t get to court much, do you?

    We are a nation of laws.

  • Anonymous

    Of course he would say it again, he has the backing and encouragement of the President of the US!

  • Anonymous
  • Anonymous

    Junior Hoffa sounded drunk .

    May not remember .

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ECYBIXNKAG5E46BC3GCJQPA7CQ well_its_no_cannibal_holocaust

    I knew Mediaite would have multiple stories on this. You are so predictable. Never a story when someone on the right says something violent, which is nearly a daily thing. But you get your panties in a twist when a union guy calls the tea party “sons of bitches”. They are sons of bitches and unamerican. Them’s the facts.

  • http://mediamatters.org/ Leedog

    “No regrets” is the correct approach!! Since the Republi-cons are spinning the story, they are owed nothing!! I find amusing that they’re so upset!!

    Though, you would think Republi-cons would be even more upset for not having new ideas for this country’s future!!

  • mrsawdust

    You must be a brainless radical liberal. Librals when can’t defend their position resort to crap like that came out Hoffa’s mouth.   

  • Anonymous

    Hoffa is assuredly correct.  The disquieting truth spoken.

  • Anonymous

    Maybe the the baggers and the GOPhers should have backed down in Wisconsin?

  • Hand of God

    Why is people always getting mad at left wing comments but they are def to right wing comments of Obama. If you really listen you can hear that the man is telling the truth! He is only matching there flame. To be honest I have a hard time believer that someone has the best interest of our Country in mind if they do not want to compromise to get stuff done. Instead these people want to stick to there policies that got us in the mess in the first place. And what crack me up mostly is how all the mainstream media is saying that half America do not approve of Obama is a total lie. Did they take a vote for this claim? You have to understand who control media and always have? I will not go to deep in to that. But know that they will all be exposed sooner than later from the top down. There plans of ruling everyone will not prevail! Either the people will rise up against or Jesus will return and deal with you. One way or the other you will be dealt with!

  • ChuckMock

    This man is a thug just like his father before him.  The tactics of unions hasn’t changed…  fear, intimidation, and threats.  And if these don’t work, get ready to have a visit from a few ‘associates’ to help you “change your mind” or, if that doesn’t work, your building might just burn down.  The union officials of today are like cockroaches.  When the light of truth shines on their activities – they scatter like the bugs they are.  Pay your dues – or else.  They don’t care if you like where the money goes (mostly to the DNC) or not.

    “but they’ve taken all the coke from the ground.
    and the union people drove away…”
    - Billy Joel -

  • ChuckMock

    This man is a thug just like his father before him.  The tactics of unions hasn’t changed…  fear, intimidation, and threats.  And if these don’t work, get ready to have a visit from a few ‘associates’ to help you “change your mind” or, if that doesn’t work, your building might just burn down.  The union officials of today are like cockroaches.  When the light of truth shines on their activities – they scatter like the bugs they are.  Pay your dues – or else.  They don’t care if you like where the money goes (mostly to the DNC) or not.

    “but they’ve taken all the coke from the ground.
    and the union people drove away…”
    - Billy Joel -

  • ChuckMock

    It’s funny…  everyone makes a huge deal about the Koch brothers but no one seems to make mention of George Soros, union contributions, Wall Street contributions, and the rest made to the Dems…  

    I’m sorry, did I say, “funny” ?  I meant sickening.

  • http://www.facebook.com/bruce.kennedy3 Bruce Kennedy

    Hoffa made a great speech. I agree, “Take the Tea Party bit*hes out”. They’re nothing but ignorant rubes.

  • http://www.facebook.com/bruce.kennedy3 Bruce Kennedy

    Hoffa made a great speech. I agree, “Take the Tea Party bit*hes out”. They’re nothing but ignorant rubes.

  • Anonymous

    Must be in the koolaid all femdems drink!! Turns them into incoherent bumbling fools!

  • Anonymous

    Settle down, Brucie!

  • Aidenlambert

    Right-wing cry baby bedwetters. It’s all great fun slagging off other people but they really scweam for their mammies when the going gets a teeny bit rough. 

  • Aidenlambert

    A crime in your nasty little bosses world when workers demand their rights.

  • Aidenlambert

    It’ s also wrong to take our money and start wars that nobody but war profiteers want but I don’t hear you bleating about that.

  • Aidenlambert

    Maybe he’s a a part of a family that looks after itself and doesn’t take crap from people like the Koch family.

  • Anonymous

    Hoffa is going to wish he kept his pie hole shut…..He just opened a whole new can of Tea Party whoop ass!!!

  • odiloglobbotschnigg

    Most amusing.  The cons can dish it out, but certainly can’t take it.  Such sissies.

  • Mick7364

    How can you give any validity to Hoffa, just a corrupt little man just like his Dad.  If he’s running a Union, you can bet he’s skimmed all the cream off the top.  All Union officials do and come on people, do you think these crooks, running unions, give a damn about the workers?

  • Holistic

    We can wait it out until Nov 2012.  I just hope we don’t see James Jr in Giants stadium with his dad. Although now its not the Mafia its the Democrat Party.

    Go Tigers!

  • Anonymous

    And according to the.. ya know… LAW!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Dallman/1583504295 Steve Dallman

    So…if a right winger called and left a message for Obama at the White House saying “I’m gonna take the son of a bitch out next year,” no one at the White House would have a problem with that?  (Of course, when questioned, the right winger would state he was referring only to voting.)

    Union violence is historical and examples are legion. 

    I’ll tell you, the Left is one hate filled, hateful bunch.

  • TruDat

    Hoffa knows if the union embezzlement of employee assets from their checks is no longer mandatory him and his ilk won’t be able to skim, and that leads to a car ride to a nearby wood chipper.

  • Anonymous

    I thought the union was rid of such as the jimmy hoffas’ of the world, now the poor unions have to deal with his son.  What a pity.

  • http://twitter.com/Kattyusa Katty

    The only reason Hoffa used this language was to keep the main-stream-newsies talking about his speech…of course the only part of his speech is his SOB reference that is being obsessed about today is that one bleep – tell me if you can what else he had to say?

  • Anonymous

    Boy oh Boy, the unions are digging their own graves (at the Meadowlands?) and it’s a great thing to see.

    Support South Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and the Right to Work movement everywhere.

  • Anonymous

    YES!

  • Anonymous

    Hoffa is nothing but a union thug. The apple obviously didn’t fall far from the tree.

  • Shiney

    Maybe Hoffa jr should remember how his father was taken out

  • Anonymous

    You’re a lying sack of shit.  Your handlers over at fox news were kind enough to edit the video for your tiny brain but for those of us who saw the whole thing from the beginning, your lies are meaningless.  He said we all need to vote before saying that we need to take you sons of bitches out next year. 

    FYI, right wing terrorist morons have called the white house threatening the president.  Nothing has been done because this is all part of the plan.  Obama wants one of you idiots to attempt to assassinate him and your playing right into his hand.

  • Anonymous

    Don’t expect any answers from this lot.  They get all their “news” from one source.

  • Anonymous

    Right to work is newspeak for slavery.

  • Bob Uda

    Hoffa is an idiot!  All unions should be abolished.  At one time in history, unions were needed and were good.  Now they are just subversive organizations who screw up our economy.  Out with them!

  • Anonymous

    MM?

  • Anonymous

    I wish Hoffa would do like his father did and VANISH.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XKUL7623H4GS5ODYY33NMLT7RQ MoDans55

    IOIYAR

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XKUL7623H4GS5ODYY33NMLT7RQ MoDans55

    Hoffa said to “take them out” by VOTING them out of office. No mention of any reload crap.

  • Anonymous

    Unions have killed America. I cheer on Scott Walker and any other politician who fights them to the death and defeats those fucking bastard union goons. They are all crooks and thieves, from the tops of the unions down to the thugs who break up companies and send them fleeing to Mexico and/or China.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XKUL7623H4GS5ODYY33NMLT7RQ MoDans55

    I give credit where credit is due. Yes, the Air Traffic Controllers were taking part in an illegal strike.

  • Anonymous

    “I’ll tell you, the Left is one hate filled, hateful bunch.”

    If they were only hate-filled and hateful…but they go forward and infest their hatred of America and Americans and force people to kowtow to their sick, demented ideology and leftist thinking.

    I want to see, next year, Obama go down in a landslide, the GOP keep control of the House, and the Tea Party win 10-12 seats in the Senate so we can have 2 years of fixing what this crowd has done to us for the past six years, and change the country for the better.

    It cannot happen soon enough for me. Seeing Obama lose, and the goons at MSDNC have to announce it (Ralph Maddow’s mustache may explode!) will be something I am going to get on tape for all eternity. It will be the day we save this country from the Left.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XKUL7623H4GS5ODYY33NMLT7RQ MoDans55

    You’re a moron of the nth degree. Hoffa was not referring to any acts of murder. He never said “don’t retreat, reload”. He called for the Labor force to use their votes to “take them out” of office, you twit.

  • Anonymous

    Your Mother called…she wanted us to tell you that she really tried to leave you at the hospital when you were born, but if she didn’t take you they would have thrown you out as trash, so she kept you.

    Her mistake.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XKUL7623H4GS5ODYY33NMLT7RQ MoDans55

    “We each have a vote”~ Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.
    “You’re a blind Reich Wing idiot”~ MoDans55

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XKUL7623H4GS5ODYY33NMLT7RQ MoDans55

    Brainless NeoCons pull responses like your’s out of their asses.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XKUL7623H4GS5ODYY33NMLT7RQ MoDans55

    Brainless NeoCons pull responses like your’s out of their asses.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XKUL7623H4GS5ODYY33NMLT7RQ MoDans55

    A whole new can of Tea Party whoop ass?
    That’s about as intoxicating as a can of near beer.

  • Bob Uda

    He probably will if he keeps it up.  The Mafia and Commies will get him and put him in a concrete suit and throw the block in the Hudson River.

  • Anonymous

    Not having unions will turn this country into Mexico and/or China, dumbass.  Without unions, say goodbye to the 10 hour work day and say hello to the 18 hour workday.  Don’t like it?  Your boss will fire you and hire someone who will exercise their right to work.  That’s what your right to work get’s you.

  • Teanationisacancer

    Go hoffa!!! The GOP parasites cry “no fair” when they get called on their bs. Im ready as hell
    To take out these maggots,,,i gots a bad itch and i need to scratch!

  • Miragerf

    Crap.  If you aren’t offending the sanctimonious right wingers, you must not be talking at all.
    What a bunch of looines.

  • Miragerf

    “Looines.”
    Look it up!

  • Miragerf

    SOB’s is a good generic insult.
    “Crazy old coots” might offend some of the crazy old coots in the Tea Party.
    You must respect your elders in their infirmity.

  • Rudolphshorter

    How is it Tea Party members and Republicans can bad mouth the President and Unions , but are sensitive to the same ?

  • http://twitter.com/Staciisa_bitch Staci Chase

    I’m glad someone stood up to the crooked Tea Party folks.  

  • Nature Freak

    The Internationale:

    Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
    Arise ye prisoners of want
    For reason in revolt now thunders
    And at last ends the age of cant.
    Away with all your superstitions
    Servile masses arise, arise
    We’ll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
    And spurn the dust to win the prize.

    So comrades, come rally
    And the last fight let us face
    The Internationale unites the human race.
    So comrades, come rally
    And the last fight let us face
    The Internationale unites the human race.

    No more deluded by reaction
    On tyrants only we’ll make war
    The soldiers too will take strike action
    They’ll break ranks and fight no more
    And if those cannibals keep trying
    To sacrifice us to their pride
    They soon shall hear the bullets flying
    We’ll shoot the generals on our own side.

    No saviour from on high delivers
    No faith have we in prince or peer
    Our own right hand the chains must shiver
    Chains of hatred, greed and fear
    E’er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
    And give to all a happier lot.
    Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
    And we’ll strike while the iron is hot.

  • Tiredoflisteningtoit

    He spoke exactly like the thug he is. People are surprized? What else would you expect?

  • ChuckMock

    don’t be an idiot.  it has nothing to do with whether or not the Republicans can “take it” or not.  It has to do, once again, with the double-standard.  Had this been a Republican saying he or she wanted to “take out” the “Democratic sons-a-bitches” in Congress – there would have been such an uprising of protest from the Libs it would have been deafening.  Like in times past, there would have been calls for resignation and all kinds of other penalties.  The pussies on the left are unable to take it.  You have it backwards – like most typical libs.

  • Big Dick Logan

    Mick you are right. I was in the Teamsters for 18 years. There is alot of good people but the worthless motherfuckers run the show !!!!!!!!

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