In Minnesota, Biden touts rural renewal, American resilience
Updated 5:22 p.m.
President Joe Biden used a Northfield-area farm on Wednesday as a backdrop to spotlight his administration’s efforts to bolster the nation’s rural economy and highlight recent data showing the overall economy’s significant growth.
“When rural America does well, when Indian Country does well, we all do well,” Biden told those gathered to hear him talk up his “Investing in Rural America” initiative, which will direct more than $5 billion in already approved money toward projects in the U.S. around rural connectivity, renewable energy and land conservation.
“I believe every American willing to work hard should be able to get a job, no matter where they live … and keep their roots where they grew up,” he said later, adding, “It’s never been a good bet to bet against the American people.”
Within his 22-minute speech, the president lamented that rural Americans had lost more than jobs over the past decades. “They lost their sense of dignity, opportunity, pride. My plan is about investing in … rural communities that have been left behind for far too long.”
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Biden’s visit comes as he tries to navigate instability on the world stage, including Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza. Biden was met by demonstrations at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and near the site of his speech critical of his resisting calls for a ceasefire.
It also coincidentally comes days after Minnesota Democratic U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips launched a bid for the 2024 presidential nomination despite Biden’s reelection plans.
The president was also expected to take part in a campaign fundraising reception while in Minnesota, according to an invitation viewed by MPR News. The event was due to be co-hosted by the sons of former Gov. Mark Dayton, Minnesota DFL Chair Ken Martin and super donors Vance Opperman and Alida Messinger.
‘Time to make some changes’
The money for the rural initiative will be drawn from a major infrastructure law adopted in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act approved in 2022. Vilsack said the $1.7 billion in “climate-smart agriculture practices” doubles what was spent on the same types of programs in the most recent year.
It will flow out through several programs to state government agencies or directly to farmers.
For example, the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources is in line for $25 million for various projects aimed at preventing soil erosion and field sediment pollution in rivers to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and other chemicals that seep into the watershed.
Paul Benson, a cow-calf producer and butcher from northwestern Minnesota who’d come to hear Biden speak, said he felt encouraged about the administration’s work in sustainable farming and meat processing. The 56-year-old received a nearly $1 million grant from the USDA to construct a meat processing facility and butcher shop in Mahnomen County.
“Now is the time to make some changes and small agriculture answers a lot of those things,” he said. “It isn’t a fix-all but it is the right direction.”
The president’s visit offers a good opportunity to highlight sustainable farming practices in the region, said Anne Schwagerl, vice president of the Minnesota Farmers Union. “Whether you think about it being a big tech issue, whether it being health care, it affects agriculture really profoundly and it squeezes family farmers on all sides.”
Eleven Minnesota farms will get U.S. Department of Agriculture grants ranging from $21,000 to $269,000 to install energy efficient equipment, from grain dryers to solar arrays.
Dutch Creek Farms, where Biden spoke, is an example of the practices the administration wants to promote.
The farm’s proprietors grow corn and soybeans and raise hogs, but they also sequester carbon and have buffers intended to keep pollutants out of nearby waterways.
War, politics ever present
Biden was last in Minnesota in April. He won the state easily in 2020, but party operatives say it’s not one they can take for granted heading into an election now just about a year out.
State GOP leaders took the opportunity of Biden’s visit to attack him as vulnerable in the coming election.
“It is becoming increasingly more obvious that both Democrats and Republicans know that if the election were held today, Biden would lose. And Biden wouldn't be coming to Minnesota if he didn't think it was true,” Minnesota GOP Party Chair David Hann said in a statement.
Biden has been working to showcase a surprisingly resilient economy. But volatility across the globe — from war in Ukraine to the recent upheaval in the Middle East — adds new political complexities for his White House.
The U.S. support of Israel’s military response to the Hamas attacks in early October was motivating groups planning to protest the Biden visit. “Show up to tell Biden stop supporting Israel’s war,” an invitation to a Wednesday evening Minneapolis rally said.
Biden focused his opening remarks Wednesday in Minnesota on the death toll of the Israel-Hamas war.
“We grieve for those deaths and continue to grieve for the Israeli children and mothers who were brutally slaughtered by Hamas terrorists. And also continue to hold in our hearts the hundreds of families and loved ones including small children and elderly grandparents, including American citizens, being held hostage,” he said. “My administration continues to work around the clock to reunite those families. We're not going to give up.”
He said more Americans and other civilians in Gaza will soon be able to leave safely. He also called for more humanitarian assistance.
At the airport, about 30 people organized by the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations held signs and chanted in the baggage claim area, calling for Biden to back a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war
Osman Ahmed, CAIR-Minnesota's director of advocacy, said he was disappointed the president is resisting a ceasefire.
“This is not really good for America,” Ahmed said. “This is not really good for the people that voted for the president last time, including me, and a lot of people, a lot of Muslims in the nation. This is really serious.”
Nat El-Hai, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the groups organizing a protest in downtown Minneapolis Wednesday evening, also said she’s disappointed by Biden’s lack of support for a ceasefire and that it's making her question how to vote in 2024.
“People my age are often told that we need to vote for the lesser of two evils. From my perspective, I do not know how to vote for the lesser of two evils when the lesser is funding genocide,” El-Hai said. “I think a lot of people my age feel similarly, and a lot of American Jews feel similarly.”
As Biden headed to Minnesota, Phillips continued his introductory swing through New Hampshire, a state where the incumbent president’s name won’t be on the primary ballot.
A group of eight elected Democrats from Phillips’ Minnesota 3rd Congressional District issued a statement saying they “enthusiastically support” Biden as “as the right person to stop Donald Trump and the damage that MAGA Republicans would bring, and to lead our nation forward.”
Speaking with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer on Wednesday, Phillips reiterated that he feels Biden is vulnerable in next year’s election and that Democratic voters want another choice.
MPR News political editor Brian Bakst and reporters Nicole Ki, Estelle Timar-Wilcox and Matt Sepic contributed additional coverage on Biden’s visit and the demonstrations around it.