The White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, where President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak, has received notice from environmental activists that they want to demonstrate.
In an effort to hold Biden, who declared his reelection run on Tuesday, responsible for his alleged 2020 campaign pledge to cease fossil fuel extraction on public lands, Climate Defiance organizers alerted the media that they planned to blockade the vicinity of the dinner on Saturday night.
“Number one, no more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends,” Biden said at a March 2020 Democratic presidential debate.
The group is requesting that demonstrators gather outside a Metro station close to the Washington Hilton, which is the location of Biden’s speech at the annual dinner with attendees from the Washington, DC, news media.
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Prior to the demonstration on Saturday, a youth-led group of activists had been demonstrating in Washington, D.C.
On Tuesday, Climate Defiance interrupted a speech given by John Podesta, who has been senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation since September 2022. On Wednesday, Declare Emergency activists blocked a section of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, causing heavy traffic jams around the nation’s capital.
The following day, at the National Gallery of Art, protesters from a group calling themselves “Declare Emergency” smeared black and red paint over the case and pedestal of Edgar Degas’ “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” sculpture.
The White House Correspondents’ Association said it is taking precautions, though it did not specify what they were.
Story adapted ABC news
