The White House sought to reframe comments by President Joe Biden on closing coal plants as part of a U.S. “energy transition,” responding to harsh criticism by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., days before midterm elections with Democratic congressional majorities at stake.
Biden’s comments while campaigning in California “have been twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended” and the president “regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offense,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Saturday.
Three days before the election, the latest friction between Biden and fellow Democrat Manchin erupted just as the president was about to campaign in Pennsylvania, a coal-rich state with a closely fought Senate race that could determine control of the chamber. Neighboring West Virginia is the no. 2 U.S. coal-producing state. Pennsylvania is the third-largest.
