President Joe Biden referred to Terry McAuliffe — the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who lost to Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin in 2021 — as “the real governor” of Virginia on Tuesday.
Biden held a campaign rally with his supporters in Manassas, Virginia, which was the president’s first joint campaign event for the 2024 cycle with Vice President Kamala Harris, CBS News reported. The president’s speech focused on protecting abortion rights and hitting Trump for his role in the reversal of Roe v. Wade. As Biden took the stage, he pointed out McAuliffe in the crowd, calling him “the real governor.”
“Hello, Virginia,” Biden began his remarks. “And the real governor, Terry McAuliffe.”
Joe Biden: “Hello, Virginia, and the real governor, Terry McAuliffe.” pic.twitter.com/hygNHhP52g
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Youngkin defeated McAuliffe by more than 60,000 votes in 2021, becoming the first Republican governor elected in Virginia since 2009. McAuliffe previously served as governor of the state from 2014 to 2018. Biden’s remark at the campaign event on Tuesday confused politicians and political commentators, who pointed out that the president has focused his 2024 campaign on rehashing Trump’s denial of Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Just in the past month, Biden has compared Trump and his supporters to “defeated Confederates” and called the former president a threat to “democracy.” In remarks addressing the anniversary of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Biden even celebrated the prosecution of hundreds of Trump’s supporters who stormed the capitol in protest of the election results.
Youngkin responded to Biden’s comment on Tuesday, writing, “Mr. President, I’m right here.”
Some political commentators said the president’s remark was “bizarre” and “monstrously stupid.”
“This is monstrously stupid, even if intended as a silly joke,” CNN contributor and The Dispatch Editor-in-Chief Jonah Goldberg said. “If you’re going to make the other side’s election denial central to your campaign, the last thing you want to do is this nonsense.”
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“Bizarre,” wrote Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump aide and current co-host of “The View.” “When you’re running on ‘defending democracy’ jokes about elections being stolen are *not* funny at all.”
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares asked, “So Joe Biden is an election denier?”
Biden has ramped up his attacks on Trump and his supporters in recent weeks as he begins his re-election campaign with all signs pointing to a Biden-Trump rematch. Trump, the GOP frontrunner, has won the first two contests in the Republican primary, taking Iowa easily last week and cruising to a victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
Biden won the New Hampshire primary easily on Tuesday night over Congressman Dean Phillips (D-MN) and self-help author Marianne Williamson. The president relied on a write-in campaign in the state after the Democratic National Committee made South Carolina the first state in the party’s primary.
General election polls show Trump leading Biden by around three points, according to the Real Clear Politics average.