Biden to target Republican Boebert as he talks wind energy in Colorado

[1/5]U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at CS Wind, the largest wind tower manufacturer in the world, in Pueblo, Colorado, U.S., November 29, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein Acquire Licensing Rights

DENVER, Nov 29 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden will tout his economic and clean energy policies on Wednesday in Colorado while taking on right-wing Republican U.S. lawmaker Lauren Boebert, a close ally of former President Donald Trump.

Biden, who blamed Trump at a fundraising event in Denver on Tuesday for taking away women’s right to an abortion, will visit a wind tower manufacturer in Pueblo, part of Boebert’s congressional district.

Biden, a Democrat running for reelection next year, has presided over a stronger-than-expected U.S. economy and big federal investments in infrastructure and clean energy, but the clean energy industry is now struggling with high costs.

Facing weak opinion polls, Biden has turned to more directly taking on Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, as unfit for the presidency and a threat to American democracy.

Boebert, who the White House calls a “self-described MAGA Republican,” referencing Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda, will serve as a surrogate target for those attacks on Wednesday.

The second-term congresswoman, who was recently criticized by fellow Republicans after being ousted from a Denver theater for disruptive behavior, faces a tough reelection battle against Democrat Adam Frisch, who has outraised her.

Boebert introduced a failed impeachment vote against Biden earlier this year, tried to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election, and made a show of carrying a gun inside the U.S. Capitol in her early days in Congress.

At the wind tower manufacturer, Biden will speak about clean energy investments and “highlight how self-described MAGA Republicans like Representative Lauren Boebert are threatening those investments, jobs, and opportunities,” the White House said.

Biden, who will not attend a U.N. gathering on climate change later this year, set a goal of deploying 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind along U.S. coastlines this decade to fight climate change. That may be unattainable due to soaring costs and supply chain delays, Reuters reported in September.

Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Jeff Mason is a White House Correspondent for Reuters. He has covered the presidencies of Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden and the presidential campaigns of Biden, Trump, Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. He served as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association in 2016-2017, leading the press corps in advocating for press freedom in the early days of the Trump administration. His and the WHCA’s work was recognized with Deutsche Welle’s “Freedom of Speech Award.” Jeff has asked pointed questions of domestic and foreign leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. He is a winner of the WHCA’s “Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure” award and co-winner of the Association for Business Journalists’ “Breaking News” award. Jeff began his career in Frankfurt, Germany as a business reporter before being posted to Brussels, Belgium, where he covered the European Union. Jeff appears regularly on television and radio and teaches political journalism at Georgetown University. He is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and a former Fulbright scholar.

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