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President Biden on Monday told parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina that he has been “quietly working” with Israel’s government to get the Israeli Defence Forces “out of Gaza” after protesters interrupted a speech he was delivering at the historic house of worship.
Mr Biden was several minutes into a campaign event at the Charleston, South Carolina, church and was speaking of how that church had been the site of a 2015 mass shooting by a white supremacist gunman, when a sole protester began interrupting him.
The protester began shouting about how Mr Biden should call for a ceasefire in Gaza if he’d “really cared” about the lives taken during the shooting. She was quickly joined by more protesters who chanted: “Ceasefire, now!”
The president’s immediate response was to attempt to calm the protesters, telling them “that’s alright” as they were escorted out by security.
After they were removed while parishioners chanted “four more years,” Mr Biden said he “understand[s] the passion” of the protesters.
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“And I’ve been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce and significantly get out of Gaza,” he said.
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One woman responded by shouting: “You’re a good man!”
Continuing, Mr Biden began to recall how after the American Civil War, the defeated pro-slavery Confederates “couldn’t accept the verdict of the war they had lost” and instead embraced what has become known as the Lost Cause, described by Mr Biden as “a self-serving lie that the Civil War was not about slavery, but about states rights”.
In what appeared to be a reference to former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s recent refusal to explicitly state that disputes over slavery drove the conflict, Mr Biden said: “Let me be clear — for those who don’t seem to know, slavery was the cause of the Civil War”.
“There’s no negotiation about that,” he added.
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1/ 1Biden says he’s been ‘quietly working’ on getting Israel out of Gaza
Biden says he’s been ‘quietly working’ on getting Israel out of Gaza
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)
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