Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted President Joe Biden‘s Monday campaign speech in South Carolina, calling on the president to press for a ceasefire in Gaza immediately.
The president’s support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military offensive in Gaza has led to declining support within the Democratic Party. The slide comes as Biden is also facing a downswing in support among black and Latino voters.
Biden’s speech, delivered at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, is a sign his campaign is placing a premium on shoring up support for his reelection effort from black voters.
The president took the pulpit on Monday to rousing cheers, claiming the chants would “go to [his] head,” before protesters interrupted his remarks.
One protester shouted that if Biden truly cared about the lives lost at Mother Emanuel, he would immediately call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“Ceasefire now!” the protesters chanted before being drowned out by competing chants of, “Four more years!”
A Biden-supporting woman encouraged the president to continue his remarks, shouting, “You’re a good man.”
“Look folks, I understand their passion, and 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 so,” Biden said in response to the protesters.
South Carolina vaulted Biden to the Democratic nomination in 2020, helped in large part by strong support from black voters, but the president lost the state to former President Donald Trump by more than 10 points in the general election. Furthermore, Biden’s national approval among black voters has fallen more than 20 points since entering office in 2021.
Biden last visited Mother Emanuel in the spring of 2015, just weeks after a racially motivated shooter murdered nine black parishioners at the church. The visit also followed shortly on the heels of the death of Biden’s eldest son, Beau Biden, and the then-vice president spoke of loss during his brief comments to the community.
“No words can mend a broken heart. No music can fill a gaping void,” Biden stated at the time. “Sometimes, even faith leaves you, just for a second. Sometimes, you doubt.”
His speech on Monday, however, followed a politically charged Friday denouncement of Trump, Biden’s likely 2024 general election adversary, and his Charleston remarks continued that theme after the initial interruption.
“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,” Biden stated. “We all saw it with our own eyes, the truth of what happened. That mob was whipped up by lies by a defeated former president.”
“We saw something on Jan. 6 we never saw before, even during the Civil War. Insurrectionists waving Confederate flags inside the halls of Congress, built by enslaved Americans,” he continued. “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.’”
Biden reiterated that the country “must always” reject “political violence,” especially in the face of a “loser” like Trump.
Biden’s campaign and White House officials routinely tout a historically low black unemployment rate and federally backed investments in minority-owned small businesses as critical advancements the president has made for black households. And Biden campaign officials have overtly stated that the president, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other top surrogates plan to outline how another Trump term would disproportionately affect minority communities.
Still, some Democratic insiders are concerned that speeches alone will not be enough for the president to shore up his coalition heading into November.
“What we’re seeing now is the beginning of a five-alarm fire,” one Democratic operative explained to the Washington Examiner. “President Biden is underwater on his handling of the economy, and it’s increasingly hard to hide that, even when the alternative is someone like Trump. Yes, the economy is slowly starting to recover, but people are still under enormous strain. This isn’t the time for platitudes and promises for the future. Voters need to see concrete action; otherwise, there’s a real chance he loses this thing.”
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said ahead of Biden’s speech that black voters are concerned about their freedoms heading into a contentious election cycle.
“This president is fighting for the freedom for folks to be able to go to that church, pray to their God, and do it without the threat of gun violence because somebody has some racial hatred,” he stated. “Just the freedom to live your life, to take care of your kids in terms of their schools, having money in your pocket, and actually living the American dream.”
“The president and the vice president’s trips to South Carolina, they aren’t from a place of worry,” Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, told reporters on a call previewing Biden’s trip to Charleston. “They’re a place of practicing what we preach. The president did prioritize putting South Carolina first in the nation in order to involve more people of color in the presidential process, and so, we’re doing just that.”
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“But when it comes to voters of color and if we’re worried, look, our campaign has been putting in the work to do everything we need to do to communicate with communities of color next fall, to make sure that they turn out,” he continued. “We’re not going to wait and parachute into these communities at the last minute and ask them for their vote. We’re going to earn their vote.”
You can watch Biden’s remarks in full below.