SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — President Joe Biden returned to his birthplace in Pennsylvania, making a final campaign stop Saturday for Vice President Kamala Harris and again let loose — offering the kind of unfiltered political sentiments that have become fairly common in recent weeks.
Biden slammed Harris' rival, former Republican President Donald Trump, and his supporters on policy issues during a speech in Scranton, but then suggested that he'd hit back — literally — on faux “macho guys.”
“There’s one more thing Trump and his Republican friends want to do. They want to have a giant tax cut for the wealthy,” Biden told the local chapter of the carpenters union. Then, apparently referencing people backing Trump, he added, “Now, I know some of you guys are tempted to think it’s macho guys.”
“I tell you what, man, when I was in Scranton, we used to have a little trouble going down the plot once in a while," Biden continued. “These are the kind of guys you’d like to smack in the ass.”
During a rally later Saturday night in North Carolina, Trump poked fun at Biden, asking the crowd, “I don't even know, is he still around?”
Biden's comment in Scranton drew laughs from the crowd. But it was another moment of his veering off political script, something that's now happening frequently with the president — even though he has played a decidedly limited role in promoting Harris, making few campaign stops for his onetime running mate.
Earlier this week, Biden sparked an uproar by responding to racist comments at a recent Trump rally made by the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden said in response.
White House press officials altered the official transcript of Biden's remarks, drawing objections from federal workers who transcribe what the president says for posterity, according to two U.S. government officials and an internal email obtained by The Associated Press.
And the reference to “garbage” followed Biden — during a recent stop at a campaign office in New Hampshire — saying of Trump, “We’ve got to lock him up” before quickly amending his comments to note he meant that Democrats need to “politically lock him up.”
Biden’s Saturday remarks come at a moment when gender issues and diverging partisan loyalties between men and women have emerged as a top feature of the campaign.
Trump has pushed masculine tropes in a bid to garner more male voters throughout his campaign. He’s supported a return to traditional gender roles and leaned into themes like “ protecting women ” whether they “like it or not” in the campaign’s closing days.
Harris has taken a far different approach, pledging to protect access to abortion and increase government spending to help families cover the costs of housing and childcare.
Though he spent decades as a senator from Delaware, Biden spent his early childhood in Scranton and Saturday's event was a homecoming for the sidelined president in several ways. He spoke at the same union hall he visited on Election Day in 2020
“Let them know how important this election is,” Biden told the crowd of about 200 enthusiastic supporters. When he noted, “I’m nothing special," one audience member shouted back, "Sure you are,” sparking chants of “Thank you, Joe.”
The president exhorted attendees to vote “for yourself and your families, people you grew up with, the people you come from.”
“Don’t forget where you come from,” Biden thundered to shouts and applause. “Don’t leave behind the people you grew up with.”
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Weissert reported from Washington.
President Joe Biden arrives on Air Force One at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Del., Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden, center, leaves St. Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church in Wilmington, Del., after attending a mass, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel unleashed its largest wave of airstrikes across Lebanon since agreeing to a ceasefire with Hezbollah last week, killing at least 11 people on Monday after the Lebanese militant group fired a volley of projectiles as a warning over what it said were Israeli truce violations.
The projectiles were apparently the first time that Hezbollah took aim at Israeli forces after the 60-day ceasefire went into effect last Wednesday. The increasingly fragile truce aimed to end more than a year of war between Hezbollah and Israel — part of a wider regional conflict sparked by the devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In the United States, President-elect Donald Trump demanded the immediate release of Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian militant Hamas group in Gaza, saying on social media that if they are not freed before he takes office in January there would be “HELL TO PAY.”
It was not immediately clear whether Trump was threatening to directly involve the U.S. military in Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. The U.S. has given Israel crucial military and diplomatic support throughout the nearly 15-month conflict.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Haris killed five people and wounded two while another airstrike on the village of Tallousa killed four and also wounded two.
Israel's military carried out a string of airstrikes late Monday against what it said were Hezbollah fighters, infrastructure and rocket launchers across Lebanon, in response to Hezbollah firing two projectiles toward Mount Dov — a disputed Israeli-held territory known as Shebaa Farms in Lebanon where the borders of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel meet. Israel said the projectiles fell in open areas and no injuries were reported.
Hezbollah said in a statement that it fired on an Israeli military position in the area as a “defensive and warning response” after what it called “repeated violations” of the ceasefire deal by Israel. It said complaints to mediators tasked with monitoring the ceasefire “were futile in stopping these violations.”
Before the Hezbollah projectiles, Israeli carried out at least four airstrikes and an artillery barrage in southern Lebanon, including a drone strike that killed a person on a motorcycle, according to Lebanese state media. Another strike killed a corporal in the Lebanese security services.
Israel has said its strikes are in response to unspecified Hezbollah violations, and that under the ceasefire deal it reserves the right to retaliate.
Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, accused Israel of violating the truce more than 50 times in recent days by launching airstrikes, demolishing homes near the border and violating Lebanon's airspace.
Officials in the U.S. — which along with France helped broker the truce and heads a commission meant to monitor adherence to the deal — played down the significance of Israeli strikes. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said, “Largely speaking, the ceasefire is holding.”
“We’ve gone from dozens of strikes down to one a day maybe two a day,” Kirby told reporters, referring to Israeli strikes. “We’re going to keep trying and see what we can do to get it down to zero.”
Under the deal, Iran-backed Hezbollah has 60 days to withdraw its fighters and infrastructure from southern Lebanon. During that time, Israeli troops are also to withdraw to their side of the border.
In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump called for Palestinian militants to free all of the roughly 100 Israeli hostages still held inside Gaza, around two-thirds of whom are believed to be alive.
If not, Trump said, “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”
Hours earlier, the Israeli government confirmed the death of Omer Neutra, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, whose body is still believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza, according to the Israeli government. The Biden administration is mounting a last-ditch effort to try to restart talks between Israel and Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on Trump's post though President Isaac Herzog welcomed it.
In Gaza, meanwhile, alarm is mounting over increasing hunger. The amount of food allowed in by Israel has plunged over the past two months, compounded by a decision Sunday by the United Nations to halt aid deliveries from the main crossing into the territory because of the threat of armed gangs looting convoys.
Experts have already warned of famine in the northernmost part of Gaza, which Israeli forces have almost completely isolated since early October, saying they're fighting regrouped Hamas militants there.
Displaced families have set up tents surrounded by piles of garbage on the streets of Gaza City. Bilal Marouf, 55, said he and 11 family members fled the Israeli offensive “barefoot and naked.”
“We had nothing. Hunger and thirst killed us, and we did not have a single shekel, nor clothes, nor a mattress, nor a blanket,” he said, speaking near his tent.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, has driven almost the entire population of the territory from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians now live in squalid tent camps, relying on international aid.
The Israeli military said it allowed 40 trucks carrying 600 tons of flour for the World Food Program to enter the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday night, as well as 16 other food trucks.
Israel has said it is working to increase the flow of aid. November saw an increase in the average number of humanitarian trucks it let into Gaza, up to 77 daily from 57 the month before, according to official Israeli figures.
But the levels are still nearly the lowest of the entire 15-month war. And the U.N. says less than half of that actually reaches Palestinians because Israeli military restrictions, fighting and robberies make it too dangerous to deliver the aid.
The World Food Program was able to only deliver aid to some 300,000 Palestinians in November across the Gaza Strip due to ongoing Israeli military offensives and the looting of convoys, Carl Skau, WFP’s deputy executive director, said Monday.
In a tent camp in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, Palestinians lined up at makeshift mud ovens trying to buy a few loaves of flatbread for their families.
With the price of flour mounting because of scarcity, the bakers — women displaced from further north — said they could bake less bread, and families could afford far less.
“They divide them to their children, one loaf every day,” said one woman baker, Wafaa al-Attar.
Abou AlJoud reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Fatma Khalid in Cairo contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/mideast-wars
A view of a damaged car in the Kibbutz Manara, which is located near to the border with Lebanon, in northern Israel, Monday Dec, 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A damaged room of a house in the Kibbutz Manara, which is located near to the border with Lebanon, in northern Israel, Monday Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli soldiers patrol the perimeter of the agricultural settlement of Avivim, next to the Lebanese border, in upper Galilee, Israel, Monday Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A stairwell in Kibbutz Manara, a community badly damaged by Hezbollah is lined with a barbed-wire fence in northern Israel, Monday Dec, 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Inbal Limor, an Israeli displaced by the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, returns to her home in Kibbutz Manara to clean and organize after the ceasefire, in northern Israel, Monday Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Burned-out cars and buildings from Hezbollah rockets are seen in the agricultural settlement of Avivim, near the Lebanese border in the Upper Galilee, Israel, on Monday Dec. 2, 2024. Despite the ceasefire with Hezbollah, Israelis remain wary of returning to the north. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A view of Lebanese village through a window of a damaged house that was hit by a rocket fired from Lebanon, in the Kibbutz Manara, located in the upper Galilee, northern Israel, Monday Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A Palestinian woman sorts through fresh bread amid dire food shortages in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A Palestinian boy carries a tray of baked goods from a clay oven amid dire food shortages in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A Palestinian woman bakes bread in a clay oven amid dire food shortages in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Destroyed buildings in an area of the village of Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon, located next to the Israeli-Lebanese border, as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A wall marks the Israeli-Lebanese border near the village of Odaisseh in southern Lebanon, as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israeli soldiers patrol the perimeter of the agricultural settlement of Avivim, next to the Lebanese border in upper Galilee, Israel, Monday Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
