Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden took an apparent swipe at blue collar workers on Monday during a campaign event in New Hampshire, saying that they need to “learn how to program.”
“I am come from a family and an area where it’s coal mining in Scranton,” Biden told the audience. “Anybody who can go down 300-3,000 feet in a mine sure as hell can learn to program as well.”
Biden later recalled his time as vice president working to help Detroit with some of its economic issues by highlighting a story that he has told numerous times of when he went out and hired dozens of women “from the hood” to help run utility services in the city.
“They went through a 19-week training program at a community college there, learning how to program,” Biden continued, noting that his “liberal friends” said that the minority women could not be expected to learn how to program.
“Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program for God’s sake,” Biden added.
WATCH:
Democrat Joe Biden: “Anybody who can go down…in a mine sure as hell can learn to program as well…Anybody who can throw coal into furnace can learn how to program for God’s sake”
Biden said @ the Dem debate he'd cut hundreds of thousands of blue collar jobs for "green economy" pic.twitter.com/JIWO2pjr32
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) December 31, 2019
During the Democrat presidential debate on December 19, Biden said that he would be willing to eliminate hundreds of thousands of blue collar jobs to obtain a “green economy,” a vision shared by socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
“Vice President Biden, I’d like to ask you, three consecutive American presidents have enjoyed stints of explosive economic growth due to oil and gas production,” Tim Alberta said. “As president would you be willing to sacrifice some of that growth, even knowing potentially that it could displace thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of blue collar workers in the interest transitioning to that greener economy?”
“The answer is yes,” Biden responded.
WATCH:
QUESTION: "Would you be willing to sacrifice…hundreds of thousands of blue collar workers in that transitioning to that greener economy?"
BIDEN: "The answers yes." pic.twitter.com/23Qh1wyEa6
— Francis Brennan (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@FrancisBrennan) December 20, 2019
“The answer is yes because the opportunity for those workers is to switch to high paying jobs,” Biden continued. “We should, in fact, be making sure right now that every new building built is energy contained, that it doesn’t leak energy, that in fact we should be providing tax credits for people to be able to make their homes turn to solar power. There are all kinds of folks — right here in California, we’re now on the verge of having batteries that are about the size of the top of this podium that you can store energy when in fact the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. We have enormous opportunities.”
Biden was blasted on Sunday by a protester at a campaign event that he had in Milford, New Hampshire.
Biden and the protester, who is out of view in the video, go back and forth for several moments, with Biden saying, “Alright, I agree with you man, I agree, nice talking to you.”
The man shouted back at Biden, “Don’t touch kids, you pervert!”
Biden laughed in response.
“Don’t touch kids, you pervert!” shouted a heckler to Joe Biden at his NH campaign event. pic.twitter.com/9VW10JcO2v
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) December 30, 2019
Biden has been accused by multiple women of inappropriate touching and has allegedly been accused by female Secret Service agents of getting naked in front of them which reportedly made them very uncomfortable.
This report has been updated to include additional information.