Trump makes case for apprenticeships

Associated Press

PEWAUKEE, Wis.

President Donald Trump is making the case for more apprenticeships to match workers with millions of open jobs, invoking the namesake of his long-running reality television show.

Trump, whose resume includes TV’s “The Apprentice,” joined daughter Ivanka Trump and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta at a Wisconsin event Tuesday focused on getting private companies and universities to pair up and pay the cost of learn-to-earn arrangements.

The president was touring a Waukesha, Wis., technical college along with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker as Attorney General Jeff Sessions faced questions before the Senate Intelligence Committee on potential Trump campaign ties to Russia and the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Prior to the event on apprenticeships, Trump joined with four people he described as “victims” of President Barack Obama’s health care law on an airport tarmac in Milwaukee. Trump said the health care law was “one of the greatest catastrophes that our country has signed into law, and the victims are innocent, hard-working Americans.” He singled out Michael and Tammy Kushman of Marinette County, Wis., and Robert and Sarah Stoll of Kenosha, Wis.

The most recent budget for the federal government passed with about $90 million for apprenticeships, and Trump so far isn’t proposing adding more.

The Trump administration has said there’s a need that can be met with a change in the American attitude toward vocational education and apprenticeships.