Vice President Pence Visits Butler Co. Manufacturer As Part Of 'Great American Comeback Tour,' Says Best Is Yet To Come For Country's Economy
WILKINSBURG (KDKA) - Vice President Mike Pence was in the Pittsburgh area Friday as part of what is being called the "Great American Comeback Tour."
The tour was created as the country gets back to work and as the economy recovers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
After Air Force 2 landed, Vice President Pence participated in a listening session at Covenant Church in Wilkinsburg this morning with faith and community leaders. He also stopped in David's Diner in Springdale.
He then went to Oberg Industries in Sarver, Butler County to highlight the reopening of America.
Ahead of the vice president's arrival in Sarver, representatives Mike Kelly, Glenn Thompson and Guy Reschenthaler held a roundtable discussion about an economic recovery for the pandemic. Much of the discussion was about keeping jobs in America and keeping working trade deals with our allies.
While that happened, Vice President Pence toured the Butler County factory before coming to the stage.
The goal was to talk about policies that will drive the country's economic recovery during and following the COVID-19 pandemic. KDKA's Chris Hoffman reports it had the feel of a campaign rally as he discussed the work President Trump had done during the pandemic and George Floyd protests.
He spoke for about 45 minutes to a group of around 150 to 200 people on the work floor of the Oberg facility.
Oberg Industries provides materials for several types of products including packaging, energy and aerospace. The vice president says we need to continue to fill these types of jobs not only here but across the country.
He says the facility provides key products to the nation and claims the best is yet to come for our economy.
The Great American Comeback Tour is being hosted by America First Policies, a nonprofit group that supports and promotes President Trump's re-election campaign.
Former Vice President and Democratic nominee Joe Biden's campaign says this is no time for a victory lap and that there's much more work to be done:
"It's an insult to Pennsylvanians that Vice President Pence is using Pittsburgh as a prop on the cynically-titled 'Great American Comeback Tour' -- because had the Trump-Pence Administration not bungled the response to the coronavirus pandemic so dramatically, there wouldn't be a need for such an enormous 'comeback,'" said Deputy Campaign Manager Kate Bedingfield in an exclusive statement. "The facts are that thousands of Pennsylvanians have died from the coronavirus, millions of Pennsylvanians have had to file for unemployment, and countless families are immeasurably devastated by the impact of this pandemic -- an impact that could have been severely blunted if the Trump-Pence Administration had acted earlier.
"The only reason Pennsylvania is able to slowly and safely re-open at all is because Governor Wolf and local leaders like Mayor Peduto showed leadership and worked tirelessly to keep Pennsylvanians safe at the peak of the crisis in the Commonwealth. They bucked President Trump's reckless demands to 'quickly!' re-open the Commonwealth because they knew that doing so could have cost countless lives.
"This is not a time for victory laps. The pandemic continues to claim nearly a thousand American lives every day and unemployment in our nation remains at Depression-era levels. The Trump-Pence Administration still, three months into this public health crisis, has not deployed a legitimate, nationwide system of widespread testing.I hope that Vice President Pence sees today in Pennsylvania the extent of the damage he's helped cause and is swayed to finally give real, much-needed relief to the Commonwealth."
