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White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended President Joe Biden on Monday amid fallout over the president’s remarks that he’d ‘shut down’ coal plants amid the country’s transition to clean energy.
The speech, in Carlsbad, California on Friday, angered West Virginia moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin – whose state and family have benefited from the industry.
He demanded a formal apology from the White House and said the president’s sentiments were ‘divorced from reality.’
Asked about Manchin’s statement at her regular press briefing on Monday, Jean-Pierre replied, ‘It seemed like there was some confusion on that, and so- but I want to say this – some of you were there.’
‘It was loud and hard to hear, I think, or maybe not exactly what was being said, but I currently don’t want to get into punditry from here,’ the Biden official said.
She referenced a statement she sent on Saturday afternoon clarifying Biden’s comments – after which critics accused her of yet again needing to walk back the president’s own words.
‘We spoke to this over the weekend. The president’s words, we believe, were twisted, and we were very clear about that. And anyone who knows Joe Biden knows he comes from a coal – coal country, from Scranton, Pennsylvania, his grandfather was a mining engineer,’ Jean-Pierre said.
‘President Biden knows that the men and women of coal country built this nation and he has spent his presidency fighting for coal communities…We believe his words were twisted and we just wanted to make sure there was some clarity.’
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was forced to defend President Joe Biden’s comments on coal for a second time
Biden said during an event in New York Sunday there would be ‘no more drilling’ in the U.S. one day after Joe Manchin blasted him for vowing to close coal plants – while the president nearly took a spill on stage.
The president could be heard at one point telling someone in the crowd ‘No more drilling. There is no more drilling. I haven’t formed any new drilling. No.’
On Friday, Biden claimed during an event in California that the U.S. will shut down coal mines in favor of wind and solar plants.
Manchin said the next day that Biden’s claims are the reason ‘the American people are losing trust in President Biden.’
‘Being cavalier about the loss of coal jobs for men and women in West Virginia and across the country who literally put their lives on the line to help and power this country is offensive and disgusting’, Manchin said.
Without naming Manchin, Jean-Pierre said in a statement shortly thereafter, ‘The President’s remarks yesterday have been twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended; he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offense.’
However, Biden seemed to double down on the sentiment during an event with New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
President Joe Biden delivered a chaotic speech from Yonkers, New York two days before the midterm elections where he stumbled on stage and spent a large time interrupting his own speech to interact with the audience
Audience member and Sarah Lawrence College student Vivian Lipson held up a white bra with ‘Joe Biden’ written in black sharpie on each of the cups at the president’s rally on her college’s campus on Sunday, November 6
Biden had to catch himself at one point during the rally as he tripped over something on stage and almost fell.
Biden was extremely interactive with the crowd during Sunday’s rally for New York Governor Kathy Hochul. So much so that he even began having a conversation with a member of the crowd who yelled at the president at the end of his rally about drilling.
He also stopped his rally at one point to get medical help for a crowd member who fainted.
Biden was telling a story about his conversation with world leaders at the G7 summit right after he became president.
It’s unclear why Biden chose New York, a state which he won by more than 23 points in 2020, as the destination for a rally just two days before the 2022 midterm elections. Biden went to bat for New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Sunday, November 6 at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, NY despite her 7.5 point lead over challenger Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin
The president was forced to stop mid-story when audience members brought his attention to someone requiring medical attention.
‘Okay, I got it, I got it,’ Biden said when the audience got frantic over the fainting spell. ‘Let’s get a little bit of help here. Someone fainted. I’ve got it, I’ve got it. We’ll get some help over here.’
He crowd sourced the effort and justified the fainting spell as due to standing for a long period of time at the rally, where Governor Kathy Hochul and Biden both spoke.
Hochul is facing her first election after being appointed to complete disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s term. She is going against GOP Representative Lee Zeldin ina state Biden won by 23.2 points in the 2020 presidential election.
The deep blue state is unlikely to turn red with polls showing Hochul ahead of Zeldin by 7.5 points. It also raises the question why Biden chose New York as one of the states where he made his final argument for electing Democrats in the 2022 midterms.
Biden interrupted his own speech several times to interact with the crowd, including almost encouraging a heckler, trying to find medical help for an audience member who fainted and talking to a person in the front row about how he ‘stopped drilling’
While Higher Love by Kygo and Whitney Houston began playing to signal the end of Biden’s speech, the president stayed behind and started talking to a person in the crowd, which prompted the music to end abruptly.
The president did not propose any plans to dig the U.S. out of economic turmoil in a New York rally just two days before Election Day – instead he attacked Republicans and again painted November 8 as a ‘battle for democracy.’
He went after Zeldin’s voting record while also invoking the names of lawmakers not in the New York race – like far-right Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
Biden said that there are 300 ‘election deniers’ on the ballot in the 2022 midterms, and claimed Republicans want to deny Democrats the right to vote as well as making sure their votes don’t count when they are cast.
‘You can’t only love the country when you win,’ the president said in reference to some lawmakers who have already suggested they won’t accept the results.
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