White House defends Biden after he repeats Charlottesville story at fundraiser

The White House was repeatedly asked why President Joe Biden retold the story about his decision to run during a fundraiser amid concerns about his age.

“The president was making very clear why he decided to run in 2020 in 2019,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday. “He made it very clear as to what he saw in this country and what was going on.”

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When a second reporter followed up, Jean-Pierre underscored how Biden was “speaking at a fundraiser” and “from his heart.”

“When you hear the president talk about it, it’s always incredibly emotional because he did, he went through an incredibly difficult time when he was deciding to jump into the race,” the press secretary said. “I have not spoken to the president about it, certainly, but what I can say is the passion that he has when he tells that story and how important it is for him to have done something because he believed our democracy was at stake.”

“I mean, you all saw what we saw in Charlottesville,” she added. “It was devastating. It was a part of our country that was devastating to see. So he spoke to that passionately and that’s why he’s in this, he’s in this because he believes that he can, he can help move this country forward in a way that brings it to its best and talks about possibilities.”

During a fundraiser this week in New York City, Biden reiterated why he decided to run within minutes and almost verbatim.

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“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 Germany in the early ‘30s,” he told the crowd. “And a young woman was killed.”

“You may remember that those folks from Charlottesville, as they came out of the fields and carrying those swastikas, and remember the ones with the torches and accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan,” he said. “In addition to that, there were white supremacists. Anyway, they were making the big case about how terrible this was. And a young woman was killed in the process.”