President Biden was drowned out by pro-Palestinian protesters chanting “cease-fire now” inside Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Monday.
As the president spoke during a campaign event at the site of the 2015 massacre where authorities said an admitted white supremacist shot and killed nine Black worshipers, a protester interrupted, shouting, “If you really care about the lives lost here, then you should honor the lives and call for a cease-fire in Palestine.”
“Cease-fire now! Cease-fire now!” the demonstrators chanted, as Biden insisted, “That’s all right.”
As the demonstrators were swiftly escorted out of the church pews, Biden’s supporters soon chanted back, “Four more years!”
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President Joe Biden delivers remarks at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., Monday, Jan. 8, 2024, where nine worshippers were killed in a mass shooting by a white supremacist in 2015. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
“I understand their passion,” Biden said of the demonstrators. “And I’ve been quietly working, I’ve been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce and significantly get out of Gaza using all that I can to do that. I understand the passion.”
Another attendee shouted to Biden, “You’re an understanding person.”
“They don’t realize that. You’re a good man,” the woman added, garnering applause.
Biden thanked her and continued his speech by referencing the recent three-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“After the Civil War, the defeated Confederates couldn’t accept the verdict of the war. They had lost. They did. So they say they embraced what’s known as the lost cause, a self-serving lie that the Civil War was not about slavery, but about states’ rights,” Biden said, attempting to connect some Trump supporters to defeated Confederates.
“So let me be clear for those who don’t seem to know slavery was the cause of the Civil War. There is no negotiation about that,” Biden said.
“Now we’re living in an era of a second lost cause,” he said. “Once again, there are some in this country trying to turn a loss into a lie. A lie which, if allowed to live, will once again bring terrible damage to this country. This time, the lie is about the 2020 election.”
Protestors against the Israel-Hamas war chant “cease-fire now” as President Joe Biden delivers his speech at Mother Emanuel AME Church where nine worshippers were killed in a mass shooting by a white supremacist in 2015 in Charleston, S.C., Monday, Jan. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Mic Smith)
Deeming Jan. 6, 2021, “one of the darkest days in American history,” Biden recounted how “insurrectionists” and a “violent mob was whipped up by lies from a defeated former president, smashing windows, spraying blood on statues, ransacking offices.”
“Outside, insurrectionists erected gallows, chanting, ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ Inside, they hunted for Nancy Pelosi, chanting, ‘Where’s Nancy?’” Biden said. “We saw something on Jan. 6 we’ve never seen before, even during the Civil War — insurrectionists waving Confederate flags inside the halls of Congress built by enslaved Americans and mobs attacked and called Black officers, Black veterans defending the nation, those vile racist names.
“And yet an extreme movement in America, the MAGA Republicans, led by a defeated president, is trying to steal history now,” Biden said. “They tried to steal an election, now they’re trying to steal history, telling us that violent mob was, and I quote, ‘a peaceful protest,’ that that insurrection, those insurrectionists were, in his words, ‘patriots,’ that there was, quote, ‘a lot of love that day.’ In fact, the rest of the nation and the world saw a lot of hate and violence.”
President Joe Biden delivers remarks at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., Monday, Jan. 8, 2024, where nine worshippers were killed in a mass shooting by a white supremacist in 2015. (AP Photo/Mic Smith)
Biden accused Trump of “the worst dereliction of duty by any president in American history” and an attempt to overturn a “free and fair election by force and violence.”
“We must reject political violence in America. Always, not sometimes, always. It’s never appropriate,” Biden said.
Biden also ripped the “Big Lie” as a “conspiracy theory,” noting how the Trump team’s 60 lawsuits bringing election fraud allegations to court in 2020 were all defeated.
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“They don’t have respect for the 81 million people who voted the other way, voted for my candidacy and voted to end the presidency,” Biden said. “In their world, these Americans, including you, don’t count. But that’s not the real world. That’s not democracy. That’s not America. In America, we all count. In America, we witness to serve all those who in fact participate. And losers are taught to concede when they lose. And he’s a loser.”
