Protests in Gaza interrupt Biden’s assault on Trump on abortion

On Tuesday, pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged their most disruptive demonstration against US President Donald Trump while he was speaking, as Joe Biden criticized the Republican nominee on the crucial electoral issue of abortion rights.

At least ten times at the Democrat’s first campaign event of 2024 with Vice President Kamala Harris in Manassas, Virginia, protesters yelling “Genocide Joe has got to go” cut him off.

“This will continue for some time. “They’ve got this planned,” added Biden, struggling to get the address off the ground as cries of “Four More Years” from the crowd drowned out the demonstrators.

Before being dragged from the demonstration, a female protestor held up a “ceasefire” banner while a man activist unfolded a Palestinian flag.

Although Biden’s goal in holding the event was to emphasize the importance of abortion rights in his campaign, the heckling brought attention to another issue that some Democratic supporters had.

Although protesters have obstructed Biden engagements in the past due to his backing of Israel during its military incursion into Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 assault, Tuesday’s rallies were the most persistent to yet.

Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024, President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign rally for abortion rights on the George Mason University campus in Manassas, Virginia.
After deciding not to campaign in New Hampshire, Joe Biden wins the state’s primary by write-in votes.
In spite of the demonstrations, Biden made his most direct assault on Trump about reproductive liberties to date, charging the Republican of being “hell-bent” on enforcing further limits on abortion.

In November, Biden attacked the outgoing president, who was expected to be his opponent, saying that he was “proud” of his three Supreme Court appointments’ role in the court’s decision to abolish the legal right to an abortion in 2022.

“The person most responsible for taking away this freedom in America is Donald Trump,” Biden said.

He went on, saying, “Donald Trump and the Republican speaker of the house are hell-bent on going even further,” charging that Republicans want to outlaw abortion nationwide.

On Monday, the 51st anniversary of the historic US Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, Biden and Harris both brought up the topic of abortion.

The ruling was subsequently unexpectedly overturned in 2022 by the current, conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

Since the Supreme Court’s judgment, twenty-one US states have implemented complete or partial prohibitions.

More and more Democrats believe that this is a vote-winning issue.

According to several polls, the majority of Americans still favor safe access to abortion, despite efforts by conservative organizations to restrict or outlaw the operation.