WATCH: Biden Tells ‘60 Minutes’ Resolving Potential Railroad Strike Avoided a ‘Real Economic Crisis’

Jackson RichmanSep 16th, 2022, 7:51 am
 

Scott Pelley interviews President Biden

President Joe Biden told 60 Minutes that resolving the potential railroad strike avoided a “real economic crisis.”

This was Biden’s first sit-down with the CBS flagship program as president.

“Mr. President, you have just averted a nationwide railroad strike that would have been crippling to the economy,” said Pelley in a clip posted on Twitter on Friday by ’60 Minutes,’ previewing the interview, which will air on Sunday. “How did you do that, and what were those last hours like in the negotiations?”

Biden responded that business and labor came together to end what would’ve been catastrophic for the economy.

We brought business and labor together. One of the things that happens in negotiations, particularly if they’ve been elongated like these have, is people say and do things where the pride gets engaged as well. And it’s awful hard to back off of some of these things. So, what we did was just say, ‘Look, let’s take a look. Let’s take a look at what’s happening.’ You have a good deal being made for labor.

Their income’s gonna go up 24 percent  over the next five years. They’ve worked out the health care piece, they worked out days off. They both sat down, in my view, and they were in the office today saying, ‘Well, we finally figured it out. This is fair on both sides.’ And it took that time to focus. And the alternative was just not thinkable.

“What do you mean,” asked Pelley.

“If the fact they’d gone on strike, the supply chains in this country would come to a screeching halt,” replied Biden.

Watch above via CBS.

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