The head of the Teamsters union emerged from a meeting with President Joe Biden on Tuesday with warm words for his labor record but said any potential endorsement would be a ways down the road.

“Historically the Teamsters union do not make an endorsement until after the respective conventions,” General President Sean O’Brien told reporters at the union’s D.C. headquarters shortly after the roundtable event. “However, this has been a different process. We’ve never had candidates into the building, never had rank-and-file participation.”

The Teamsters union has long been a pillar of the Democratic coalition. But this election cycle under O’Brien, who took over in March 2022, the union opened its doors to independent and Republican presidential candidates willing to meet with union members — including former President Donald Trump in January, following a personal appeal from O’Brien.

The decision to host Trump, whose administration advanced a host of policies that hampered organized labor’s power and installed appointees who Biden quickly swept out in favor of union-friendly ones, generated some internal friction among Teamsters.

O’Brien has said it is important to ensure that members across the political spectrum feel included in the endorsement process and that the union can voice its top priorities to presidential candidates.

“There’s no dispute that President Biden has been great for unions, especially the Teamsters union,” O’Brien said, citing Biden’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and emergency assistance to distressed pension funds.

“But like everything else we do, there’s always room for improvement. There’s always a threat to organized labor, so we want to be proactive and make certain every candidate — not just President Biden — understands how important our issues are.”

O’Brien said that the Teamsters intend to survey rank-and-file members before convening its leadership later this year to issue its endorsement, “most likely after the conventions.”

During his meeting with the union, Biden talked about his support for passing the sweeping expansion of labor and union rights known as the PRO Act, his dissatisfaction with a Supreme Court’s ruling last year in a labor law case involving Teamsters who were sued for damages incurred during a strike, and drew a comparison to the role organized labor played during the Civil Rights Movement to the need to elect more pro-labor candidates to Congress.

“That he really understood the depth and detail of things was impressive,” said John Palmer, a member of the Teamsters executive board who publicly condemned inviting Trump and skipped that roundtable in protest.

Palmer said he and some other influential Teamsters would like O’Brien to speed up the timeline and endorse Biden.

“There were several people who felt that we shouldn’t play around with this, and that we should do it sooner rather than later.” Palmer said. “They understand the stark difference between a guy who’s anti-union, and a guy who justifiably deserves the title of most pro-union president in my lifetime.”

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on the president’s meeting.