After reports that former President Donald Trump plans to make a campaign stop in Michigan next week to speak with striking autoworkers, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain and Michigan Democrats were quick to make it clear that the 2024 Republican frontrunner was not welcome.

While Michigan Democrats made the case that Trump's policies were harmful to American workers, electoral considerations were at the top of mind on a press call on Tuesday morning. Trump, who won the state in 2016 and lost it in 2020, could not be allowed to gain ground there ahead of a potential rematch with President Joe Biden next year, they argued.

For Fain, there were broader stakes to consider as he takes his unprecedented fight to Detroit’s three major automakers: Ford, GM and Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler.

“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” Fain said in a statement. “We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”

Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat who represents parts of Detroit’s suburbs, had a similar message on the press call.

“Donald Trump is parachuting in and trying to get a cheap political hit or photo-op and quite frankly, he's doing the timing exactly for what he wants to distract from his own disastrous record on labor and what else is going on in the world,” Dingell said. “Michiganders remember Donald Trump's record, and they know what it really looks like. The truth is that he was one of the most anti-worker presidents this country ever had.”

Trump is making the trip to Detroit in lieu of attending the second Republican presidential debate in California, according to multiple media reports. Trump already skipped the first debate and had said he planned to skip more, but his campaign did not respond to inquiries about the Michigan trip or Fain’s comments.

For his part, Trump has expressed support for the UAW workers but blamed their issues not on their employers, but on electric car manufacturing.

“The auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership, and their leadership should endorse Trump,” the former president said in an interview that aired on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “The reason is, you got to have choice, like in school. I want school choice. I also want choice for cars. If somebody wants gasoline, if somebody wants all electric, they can do whatever they want, but they're destroying the consumer and they're destroying the auto workers.”

Trump went on to claim in the NBC interview that U.S. policies promoting electric car construction were shipping auto industry jobs overseas, specifically to China. The Biden administration has argued their policies and proposed regulations are intended to stimulate growth of the domestic electric vehicle industry and prevent manufacturing from being outsourced to China.

Fain has said he wants a “just transition” to electric vehicles, with demands that workers at battery factories be unionized with the UAW and current union members working on the newer cars be guaranteed job security and pay equivalent to that of workers building internal-combustion engines. 

But the UAW’s new leader, fresh off an election earlier this year, has also been aggressive in his calls for Biden to do more for auto workers. Though Democrats portray themselves as the party of labor, Biden has earned most major unions’ endorsements as he frequently refers to himself as the “most pro-union president in history,” Fain has withheld the UAW’s endorsement for now.

“We expect action, not words,” Fain said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “Who the president is now, who the former president was or the president before them isn't going to win this fight. This fight is all about one thing. It's about workers winning their fair share of economic justice instead of being left behind as they have been in the last decades.”

The UAW did not not immediately respond to a question about what they hoped to see from Biden. The president said he would dispatch acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and top economic aide Gene Sperling to Michigan to assist in negotiations if needed, but has not said if he will join the picket lines like fellow Democrats have. But a White House official said Tuesday that Su and Sperling will instead remain in Washington to allow the negotiations room to play out.

"Given that negotiations are ongoing between the negotiating parties, it is most productive for Sperling and Su to continue their discussions from Washington and allow talks to move forward, and we’ll continue to assess travel timing based on the active state of negotiations," the official said. "The President stands with UAW workers, and believes that record corporate profits must mean record contracts for the UAW."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have all marched with striking workers in recent days.

Some Michigan Democrats, including state lawmakers and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, have called for Biden to picket three of the country’s most iconic automakers. But the two congresswomen that participated on the Tuesday press call did not want him to show. 

Rep. Haley Stevens, who represents another district outside of Detroit, called the strike “unprecedented” and “the most important that we’re going to see in my lifetime,” but argued Biden should steer clear.

“I don't think that this is the president's deal to negotiate. It is not our deal to negotiate,” she said of Biden, before adding of Trump: “I think turning this into a supposed campaign rally is inappropriate and I don't want to speak for anyone but myself, but it's just not welcome in Michigan.”

Dingell said that “presidential politics” had no place in the negotiation and said the question of whether Biden should march alongside workers “ticks me off” because she believed the discussion obscured the fight for the future of the auto industry.

“I do not believe that the president himself should intervene,” Dingell said. “He should not be at that table.”

NOTE: This article has been updated to clarify details about Tuesday's press call.