Joe 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. As the White House backtracked and claimed Biden’s words were ‘twisted,’ the West Virginia Democrat Senator Manchin said Saturday 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.
However, Biden seemed to double down on those remarks – while he chatted with hecklers and nearly fell on stage discussing lowering the annual cost of prescription drugs for seniors at Sunday’s event with New York Govenror Kathy Hochul.
‘Oops, stepping on a – hmm – it’s black. Anyway,’ Biden said after he nearly fell.
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
The president turns 80 on November 20, and was talking about his age and birthday when a heckler interjected from the audience.
‘I know I don’t look it, but I’ve been around for a little while,’ Biden joked to the crowd gathered at private liberal arts university Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York on Sunday evening.
At this point, Biden was interrupted by at least one protester, whom he appeared to encourage as he was being escorted out of the venue.
‘Let ’em holler. Let ’em holler,’ the president dismissed. ‘That’s more like my generation, alright. I’m with ya.’
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 who expressed continued concern about the optics of the U.s. Capitol being raided by citizens who objected to the 2020 election results.
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.