President Joe Biden’s pro-abortion rally in Virginia was repeatedly interrupted by pro-Palestine protestors.
The activists demanded the federal government arrange a ceasefire with Israel. Protestors chanted “Genocide Joe" and "cease-fire now" during the Biden-Harris campaign event in Manassas. Reports indicate the speech was disrupted at least fourteen times and that the incumbent Democrat was interrupted five times in the first four minutes alone.
His onstage supporters chanted “four more years” in an effort to drown out the pro-Palestine activists.
At another point, a protestor yelled “Israel kills two mothers every hour” and Biden supporters began chanting “We love Joe!”
The protestors were escorted out of the event. According to The Hill, Biden’s speech was 20 minutes in total excluding the interruptions.
“The president has faced increasing pressure from the left to call for a cease-fire in Gaza and has rebuffed those calls, arguing it would allow Hamas to regroup and only help them,” the outlet noted. “The Biden administration has increasingly encouraged Israel to target its approach in Gaza against Hamas and minimize the impacts of its operation on civilians.” Joe Biden has been interrupted 5 times in 4 minutes (and counting) at his big pro-abortion campaign rally in Virginia by people on his own side screaming about Israel murdering Palestinians. Complete and utter disaster pic.twitter.com/AFSjHZu4mu NOW: Protestors demanding a ceasefire in Gaza repeatedly disrupt @POTUS's campaign event in Virginia.
— Dylan Housman (@Dylan_Housman) January 23, 2024
As Biden campaigns on reproductive rights, he continues to give Israel bombs to drop on 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/bqvEz1rvjM
— CODEPINK (@codepink) January 23, 2024
The speech began on an unexpected note.
“Hello, Virginia!” said Biden. “And the real governor, Terry McAuliffe!”
McAuliffe lost the 2022 gubernatorial race to current Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. Business Insider described the race as “the biggest test of President Joe Biden and his party's strength since Democrats won back the White House in November 2020 and the Senate in January.”
Biden haltingly tried to deliver his speech which included a denouncement of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn 1973’s Roe v. Wade. He said the court “ripped away fundamental constitutional rights that was in place for nearly 50 years.”
“Today in America, women are being turned away from emergency rooms, forced to travel hundreds of miles to get basic health care, forced to go to court to plead to help to protect themselves and their ability to then have children in the future," Biden said, speaking in front of a backdrop reading "Restore Roe." "The cruelty is astounding. And it's a direct affront to a woman's dignity."
Biden blamed former President Donald Trump and the “MAGA Republicans” for taking freedoms away from women and provoking doctors to leave states with abortion bans. He vowed to veto a national abortion ban should one be passed by Congress.
First Lady Jill Biden spoke ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Reproductive freedom affects all of us, doesn’t it?” she asked the crowd. “But there are extremists working harder than ever to drag us back to a past that we thought was long over.”
She told a story about a friend from high school.
“It was the late-60s and abortion was illegal in Pennsylvania where I grew up. To end the pregnancy, she told me that her only recourse was to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to declare her mentally unfit before the doctor would perform the procedure,” said Mrs. Biden. She told the crowd, “Women put Joe and Kamala in the White House and we will do it again!”
