London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

What happened when Biden and the Royals came to Boston

What happened when Biden and the Royals came to Boston

Union members in Dorchester held a phone bank Biden could use to show his solidarity with labor after he signed a bill averting a freight rail workers’ strike Friday.

Help Raphael Warnock from afar: Check. Earn some union credibility: Also check.

President Joe Biden returned to Boston on Friday for a whirlwind afternoon that began with a Prince William meeting and ended with a fundraiser for the vulnerable Democratic senator ahead of Tuesday’s Georgia runoff election.

But it was the union-sponsored phone bank that underscored the dual purposes of Biden’s hastily thrown-together trip — finding a safe way to help Warnock and showing off his union support hours after he signed a controversial bill averting a freight rail workers’ strike.

A grinning Biden was met with a standing ovation and a “we love you, Joe” at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103 in Dorchester as photographers clicked away. A few union members wore “IBEW FOR JOE” t-shirts. A plastic bag full of buttons with Biden’s name on them sat on a table by the door.


President Joe Biden greets people as he visits a phone bank at International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103, Dec. 2, 2022, in Boston.

“What you’re doing really makes a gigantic difference,” Biden told the room. “We need that 51st vote.”

The IBEW provided friendly territory for Biden. It’s a few blocks from Labor Secretary Marty Walsh’s home in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. The union hosted Vice President Kamala Harris for an abortion-access roundtable in August. Lou Antonellis, the Local 103 business manager, told reporters that “the president has already established himself as the most pro-labor, pro-worker president in the history of the United States.” He declined to answer questions about the president’s handling of the rail strike.

While Biden basked in the glow of the IBEW’s goodwill, the phone bank for Warnock was relatively brief. Members began making calls only about 45 minutes before the president entered the room. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who joined in alongside fellow Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, could be heard talking to someone who said they were in New York. Press were ushered out of the function room after the president took a few selfies and made a few calls. A few minutes after he left, many of the dialers picked up boxes of leftover pizza and headed for the door.

And just miles away, where Biden met the prince, a couple hundred activists, including railroad workers and members of the Democratic Socialists of America, were protesting the president for forcing the contract deal that averted the rail strike but left workers without the ability to fight for paid sick leave.

Biden likely made up for it at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraiser — the original reason for his return to Massachusetts less than a week after he left Nantucket — with Warren and Markey at a private residence in Boston’s pricey Beacon Hill neighborhood where he reiterated the need for Democrats to gain the upper hand in the Senate that’s currently split 50-50.



Biden has no plans to visit Georgia ahead of Tuesday. Instead, by campaigning for Warnock some 1,000 miles away, the president is continuing his successful midterm strategy of helping from a distance. Biden aides told the Associated Press that Warnock’s campaign requested the Boston trip. And deep-pocketed Massachusetts is as good a place as any to help replenish the coffers Senate Democrats’ campaign arm drained by pouring millions into Warnock’s runoff election against Republican Herschel Walker.

Yet Biden drew the most attention Friday for his meeting with the Prince of Wales at the John F. Kennedy Library for a mostly private meeting in which the two took in the “spectacular” skyline view and shared “warm memories” of the late Queen Elizabeth II, according to pool reports.

The two also share an affinity for the late president. The British royals were concluding a three-day tour of Boston on Friday that culminated in their Earthshot climate innovator prize awards — an initiative named after Kennedy’s famed “moonshot” speech. Biden delivered remarks on his administration’s similarly named cancer moonshot initiative during a visit to the library in September.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
×