Both the White House and President Joe Biden‘s 2024 campaign sought to minimize concerns surrounding escalating pro-Gaza protests targeting the president’s political events.

Biden’s Tuesday rally in Virginia, an event focusing on the need to restore federal abortion protections, was interrupted multiple times by protesters calling on Biden to pressure Israel to end its offensive in Gaza. That followed a separate incident in January, where ceasefire protesters interrupted an event Biden held at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Unlike the Charleston protests, Tuesday’s activists took a significantly more coordinated approach. Fourteen protesters, located in separate parts of the auditorium, interrupted Biden 13 separate times, from start to finish.

Both White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and John Kirby were pressed on the demonstrations during Wednesday’s White House press briefing but ultimately said that Biden respects the First Amendment right to peaceful protest.

“We have been urging our Israeli counterparts to be careful and precise. We have talked about the civilian casualties and how we don’t want to see more. We have urged them to take different actions, and they have responded to that advice and counsel,” Kirby said when asked if the protests were changing Biden’s mind regarding a permanent ceasefire. “He understands that there are strong feelings here on all sides, as you would expect.”

“The president believes that Americans have the right to speak out and make their voice heard, as long as they do it peacefully, and so it must be respected,” Jean-Pierre added later in the briefing.

The press secretary specifically did not address whether Biden has been frustrated by the mounting protests, especially the ones that interrupted his remarks on abortion Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Biden campaign officials also addressed the protests, but suggested that when confronted with former President Donald Trump’s plans to instate a ban on Arab and Muslim immigration to the U.S., Democrats would eventually rally around the president.

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“I think what you saw yesterday was the president who understands and respects Americans’ fundamental First Amendment rights to peacefully protest. I think that stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump and the Republicans who don’t seem to understand the same thing, who only want to use these situations to fan the flames and further divide people,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said Wednesday. “Joe Biden is approaching the situation in the Middle East not through the lens of politics, but as the commander in chief of this country who was prioritizing American national security and global security. He’s doing so with the wisdom, the judgment, and the experience that comes with his age, as you mentioned, but he’s also doing it with the empathy and the decency that complex situations demand.”

You can watch Wednesday’s press briefing in full below.