White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre immediately pivoted to talk about the 2017 riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, after Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy confronted her about pro-Hamas protesters during Friday’s press briefing.
“What does the president think about young people in America saying things like ‘We are all Hamas’ and ‘Long live Hamas’?” Doocy asked.
“I will say this is a president who has been, since he has been in office, and the reason why he ran has been very clear about what he witnessed in Charlottesville, let’s not forget what we saw, the antisemitism, the bigotry, the hate, that we saw in the streets of Charlottesville. As I just stated, was one of the reasons that he decided to run and no president has taken more action to combat antisemitism than this president,” Jean-Pierre responded.
“And so, in our national strategy, we made clear that when jews are targeted, because of their beliefs, because of their identity, when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hate, hatred, that is antisemitism. That is completely, completely unacceptable,” Jean-Pierre continued.
In 2017, crowds of white supremacists, Black Lives Matter supporters and Antifa militants clashed leaving a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which left one counter-protester dead and several people injured. Biden often invokes the moment as the reason he decided to run for president and challenge former President Donald Trump for the White House.
The president has been facing backlash from pro-Palestinian supporters from within his campaign and within his administration. A top official in Biden’s education department resigned in January over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. (RELATED: Intern Rebellion: White House Underlings Stir Up Division Over Biden’s Foreign Policy)
During a September 2023 campaign reception in New York City, Biden told the story, then moments later, repeated the story again, nearly word for word.
“But then along came, in August of 2017, Charlottesville, Virginia,” Biden said. “You remember those folks walking out of the fields literally carrying torches, with Nazi swastikas, holding them forward, singing the same vicious, antisemitic bile – the same exact bile – bile that was sung in – in Germany in the early 30s. And a young woman was killed. A young woman was killed.”
“And this was – and I re – you may remember it. There was a consequential piece of business going on. And the former guy was asked, ‘What do you think would happen?’ He was the sitting president. And he said, ‘I thought there were some very fine people on both sides,'” Biden continued, touching on how it inspired him to run for president.
Jean-Pierre argued that he repeated his story because he was speaking “passionately.”
“I think it’s important to note that the president was speaking, as you said, at a fundraiser, and he was speaking from his heart,” Jean-Pierre said. “He was speaking about why he decided to do this. And you hear the president talk about this, it’s always incredibly emotional for him. He didn’t have to. He went through an incredibly difficult time when he was deciding to jump into the race.”
“He spoke to that passionately, and that is why he is in this because he believes he can help move this country forward in a way that brings it to its best,” Jean-Pierre continued.