President Biden rails at Lauren Boebert while touting energy policy in her district
Jack Dempsey/AP Photo
In two appearances in Colorado this week, President Joe Biden lambasted U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert as he highlighted his economic agenda and his administration’s spending on clean energy.
During speeches in both Denver and Pueblo, the president called out the representative’s voting record and her outspoken criticisms of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and Inflation Reduction Act, which he said have helped her district.
While speaking in Pueblo, the largest city in the sprawling 3rd Congressional District she represents, Biden did the sign of the cross — marked by touching his forehead, the center of his chest then each side of his chest — when he mentioned the her. The crowd laughed and cheered in response.
“She’s one of the leaders of the extreme MAGA movement,” he said during the speech at CS Wind, the world’s largest facility for wind tower manufacturing. “She, along with every single Republican colleague, voted against the law that made these investments and jobs possible.”
CS Wind is undergoing a $200 million expansion that is expected to create 850 jobs by 2026 with help from the tax benefits in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which included hundreds of billions of dollars of financial incentives.
His visit to Colorado and repeated denunciations of Boebert come as Republicans and Democrats begin gearing up for highly anticipated elections in 2024. Between low polling numbers for Biden and a close election in 2022 for Boebert, both candidates have reason to fear that their re-election bids could be in trouble next year.
Biden has taken a more aggressive approach in recent weeks in criticizing far-right Republicans, including those aligned with former President Donald Trump, who may be his opponent in the 2024 general election. In Pueblo on Wednesday, Biden criticized the Boebert throughout the speech, pointing to her voting against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which she has called a “massive failure.”
“It all sounds like a massive failure in thinking by the congresswoman and her colleagues,” he said.
Boebert, one of Biden’s most vocal critics in Congress, has responded with her own attacks on the president, saying he “panders to radical extremists” in a statement preceding his visit to Colorado.
“Families in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District are being crushed by so-called ‘Bidenomics.'” she said.
She also taunted him from D.C., saying “I hope there’s not a silver alert that goes out for him” during his trip to Colorado. Silver alerts can be sent for missing elderly people with dementia.
Biden arrived in Denver on Tuesday afternoon and attended a fundraising event for his re-election campaign at a Cherry Hills home before flying to Pueblo Wednesday.
During his speech in Denver, he made similar remarks about the the U.S. representative voting against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
“I find it pretty unbelievable,” he said.
Boebert was elected in 2020 after defeating Republican Scott Tipton in a huge primary upset and nearly lost her seat to former Aspen city councilman Adam Frisch, a Democrat, in 2022. In 2024, she and Frisch are expected to have a rematch.
Biden was originally scheduled to visit Pueblo on Oct. 16, but the trip was postponed, so he could remain in Washington to focus on the conflict in the Middle East.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Elliott Wenzler is the Western Slope politics reporter for The Aspen Times and its sister publications in Glenwood Springs, Vail, Steamboat Springs, Summit County, and Grand County.
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