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Biden Gets Tepid Reception, Delivers Partially Incoherent Speech to Small Crowd

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


President Joe Biden didn’t get a raucous reception in Democrat-controlled Minnesota on Wednesday, where he delivered a mumbling speech that was at times incoherent to a lightly-attended campaign event touting federal spending on rural America.

With an American flag and a John Deere tractor as backdrops, Biden obviously struggled at times during a speech in which he promoted the development of homegrown eco-friendly biofuels.

“We’re investing millions in building new bio economy with homegrown biofuels, which will contribute nearly $3 billion to Minnesota’s economy over every year it saves as an important market for family farms to be able to (unintelligible),” he said at one point.

Other posts on the X platform mentioned that Biden’s speech did not draw a lot of attention and that a pro-Muslim group had criticized him for his administration’s support of Israel’s military response to a Hamas attack earlier this month that left 1,400 Israelis dead and hundreds more kidnapped.

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Earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to label anti-Israel protesters on college campuses across the United States as “extremists,” despite antisemitic rhetoric, violence, and rising fear among Jewish students.

During a press briefing at the White House, Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Jean-Pierre if Biden considered the protestors to be “extremists” after he referred to opposition Republicans as “MAGA.”

Jean-Pierre also dodged when Doocy asked whether Biden saw the protests as youth just getting involved or if he thought the next generation was “doomed.”

Below is a transcript of the exchange:

DOOCY: “Thank you, Karine. Does President Biden think the anti-Israel protesters in this country are extremists?”

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Jean-Pierre: “What I can say is, we’ve been very clear about this. When it comes to anti-Semitism, there’s no place — we have to make sure that we speak against it very loud and be — and be very clear about that. Remember what the president decided — when the president decided to run for president, is what he saw in Charlottesville in 2017, where he saw neo-Nazis marching down the streets of Charlottesville with vile anti-Semitic, just hatred, and he was very clear then and he’s very clear now. He’s taken actions against this over the past two years and he’s continued to be clear. There is no place, no place for this type of vile, this kind of rhetoric.”

DOOCY: “We hear you guys, though, talk about extremists all the time, it is usually about MAGA extremists. So, what about these protesters who are making Jewish students feel unsafe on college campuses? Are they extremists?”

Jean-Pierre: “I’ve been very, very clear — I’ve been very, very clear. We are calling out any form of hate, any form of hate. It is not acceptable. It should not be acceptable here. And we are going to continue to call that out. And let — and let me be very clear. This is a president that has continued to have that fight in his office in this administration. When he repealed Trump’s Muslim ban on his very — in first day in office. That is something that this president did. He also established an inter-policy committee to counter islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and related forms of bias and discrimination. We have taken this very, very, very seriously, from the president all the way on down.”

DOOCY: “Does President Biden look at these anti-Israel protests on college campuses and think, it’s nice to see that the country’s youth are so involved, or does he think the next generation is doing it?”

Jean-Pierre: “Here’s the thing: There’s no place for hate in America.”

DOOCY: “But [inaudible] —“

Jean-Pierre: “No, no, no. I’m telling you, there’s no place for hate in America and we condemn any anti-Semitic threat or incident in the strongest terms. And you heard me say at the top. We — I gave a message to students who are feeling, who are feeling under threat right now, right? We’re tracking these threats very closely. We are there for them. No student should have to be able to go to class, live on campus in fear. And, you know, these incidents, these reported anti-Semitic incidents at schools and on campuses, that should not be. We have to condemn them. We have to condemn them.”

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