(MANASSAS, Va.) — President Joe Biden had planned a major campaign speech on Tuesday to highlight abortion rights as key 2024 campaign issue, marking the 51st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide that the Supreme Court overruled in 2022.
But instead, he was interrupted some 14 times by pro-Palestinian protesters as he tried to deliver his remarks.
They repeatedly stopped Biden, who appeared frustrated at times, with chants that included “Genocide Joe” and “How many kids will you kill?” in opposition to his support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Biden supporters drowned them out the protesters with chants of “four more years” and “let’s go, Joe.”
He struggled to finish his speech, telling the crowd at one point, “They feel deeply.”
The protest appeared to have been coordinated. The demonstrators stood up and shouted from different sections of the auditorium at different moments.
After the seventh interruption, Biden said, “This is going to go on for a while. We have a couple more of these, I believe.”
The protests continued when the president’s motorcade was greeted outside the rally site by dozens of demonstrators — some carrying signs and Palestinian flags.
The motorcade drove through dozens of protestors standing on either side of a two-lane road outside the venue shouting, “Shame on you!”
This was not the first time Biden has been interrupted during a campaign speech — a handful of pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted his speech in early January at the AME Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina — but the number of times Biden was interrupted on Tuesday was unprecedented since Biden began campaigning.
Staffers and law enforcement, including members of the Secret Service, escorted the protesters out of the auditorium each time.
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