Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) hit back at AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Thursday for calling her rhetoric "poisonous."

Trumka went to Anchorage, Alaska — Palin's political backyard — to deliver a speech in which he is expected to criticize Palin's language, which he says could incite violence from her supporters. 

"And down in Tyler, Texas, she’s talking about — and I quote — 'union thugs.' What? Her husband’s a union man. Is she calling him a thug? Sarah Palin ought to know what union men and women are," Trumka will say. "That’s poisonous. There’s history behind that rhetoric. That’s how bosses and politicians in decades past justified the terrorizing of workers, the murdering of organizers."

Palin responded on her widely followed Twitter account, saying: 

Know our hardworking union friends (esp from my days as an IBEW sister, Todd IBEW & USW brother) aren't sheep, they'll ask: Trumka's motive?? ?Think Trumka's frustrations r w/Obama, not me (high unemplymnt, deals w/Obama&his subsequent broken promises)so understandable Rich's ticked

AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale quickly fired back, saying that she undermined her message by resigning as governor last year.

"Basically, she's having a temper tantrum, putting her hands over her ears and yelling 'la la la la la, I can't hear you,' " Vale said. "Because if she had actually read the speech the motivation and message are crystal clear. She left working families in Alaska behind when she tried to trade up to Fox News and the Tea Party. We understand that she wants to keep up her faux populism and image as caring about ordinary people, but her actions, policies and candidates she supports speak way louder than her tweets."