Teamsters president Sean O’Brien took a gamble speaking at the RNC. It won’t pay off

Other labor leaders—and other Teamsters—are calling O’Brien’s RNC appearance a betrayal. What was he hoping to get out of the speech?

This year’s Republican National Convention featured a number of strange guests. Among them were former reality-TV star Amber Rose, the CEO of a bean company, a gaggle of North Carolina frat boys, and a portly English Bulldog. But the most surprising speaker was a short, stout, bald man with a thick Boston accent who could’ve blended seamlessly into the crowd, were he not invited to speak to them from the stage: Sean O’Brien, the general president of the 1.3-million-member-strong International Brotherhood of Teamsters, addressing the RNC on July 15.