On a gloomy and rainy Sunday afternoon, U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar traveled to Michigan to talk labor policy before a union crowd.

And while the questions posed to the two Democratic presidential candidates by members of the United Food and Commercial Union in Madison Heights centered primarily on issues of importance to organized labor, it was hard not to address the news at the top of many minds: The impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump.

“No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” Warren said. “So I'll be perfectly honest, when I decided to run for president, I never thought I’d be talking about impeachment.”

She made that decision after reading the report from special prosecutor Robert Mueller and it was reinforced by the latest news on Trump’s conversations with the president of Ukraine.

More:Here's where Michigan's congressional representative stand on impeachment now

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“He invites foreign government again to interfere in our 2020 election,” she said. “We cannot have a man who believes that he can use whatever tools are available in government to him, that he can squeeze world leaders, that he can use your tax dollars to dangle as aid in front of a foreign country, not for purposes of helping the United States of America, but for purposes of helping Donald Trump get reelected.”

Klobuchar had a similar reaction, telling reporters before the forum began that Congress is able to do both policy and an impeachment investigation.

“I’m a mom. I'm good at juggling things, we can do two things at once,” she said. “And that means making sure that we obey the law, and that we hold the president accountable. I think that's the minimum we should be doing.”

In addition to the impeachment, the candidates addressed a number of different topics, including:

The United Auto Workers strike against General Motors, which is in its second week, drew the support of both Warren, who visited the picket line in Detroit after the forum, and Klobuchar, who visited a picket line earlier this month. Warren had some particularly harsh words for the automaker, saying "GM is one more giant corporation that has proven that it wants bailouts from the federal government. It makes all kinds of promises. And then turns around after making billions of dollars in profits and closes multiple plants right here in the United States of America. GM has loyalty to exactly one thing: its own profits."

The role of advanced technology and automation in the decline of jobs in the nation had both candidates saying that unions had to be strengthened in order to have a voice in those types of decisions. Warren suggested that unions should be able to elect 40% of a corporations' board members. "I want to see our companies prosperous but one in which workers are getting a big chunk of that prosperity as well." And Klobuchar said that retraining opportunities have to be available to union members to help adjust to changing technologies.

On immigration, Warren said legal immigration needs to be expanded and that the crisis at the southern border was manufactured by Trump when he cut aid to Central America. "When he cut aid to central America and destabilized an already shaky government there, he put people in a position of having nowhere else to go. We need to help stabilize Central America and treat people who come to the border with respect."

On making health care more affordable, Klobuchar talked about making it easier to bring prescription drugs into the country from Canada where universal health care is the law. "And the key is allowing people to keep their health plans."

Warren has been surging in recent polls, finishing second behind former Vice President Joe Biden in many and breaking through into first place in a few recent polls, while Klobuchar has been stuck in the low single digits.

Before the forum started, Klobuchar spoke with reporters and said she doesn't think the impeachment investigation will turn off voters in the three states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — that narrowly voted for Trump and gave him the electoral votes he needed to win the White House.

"I think for a lot of voters, and even for some members of the Democratic Party, elected members re-litigating the last election was something that wasn't going to move them toward impeachment," she said. "But this is on-going conduct. And regardless of where the politics lie for Democrats and Republicans ... this goes way beyond politics."

Warren said that Congress has no choice but to continue with the impeachment investigation and voters will follow.

"The episode in July with Ukraine made it even clearer that if this man is not held accountable, he will continue to break the law," she said. "And that is a threat to our very democracy. So that's why I believe we have to go for that. We need to be sober. It should not be something that anyone celebrates, but we need to do the investigation and then have the vote."

UFCW workers didn't really want to talk about the impeachment investigation, saying the process will play itself out eventually.

"I'm more focused on issues that are important to organized labor," said Jerry Young, a Monroe resident and a 40-year employee of Kroger. "Trump may have done some things that I don't really care for, but right now, the issue is organized labor and what the candidates' plans are for us."

Bill Finnegan, who works at Campbell Soup in Napoleon, Ohio, came for the forum Sunday, saying he hopes to hear about how the candidates feel about labor and immigration policy.

"We are a country of immigrants," he said. "And I believe everybody should be able to come in and be able to just be who they are without having to go through some of the stuff that's going on today."

Neither Finnegan nor Young have landed on a candidate yet, but will have the chance to hear from several more candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Kamala Harris of California and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg at another UFCW forum in Iowa next month.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal.