Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden still plans on attending a fundraiser hosted by a co-founder of a fossil fuel company on Thursday even after the candidate was challenged over the event during CNN’s town hall on climate change.
A town hall attendee asked Biden on Wednesday how he can be trusted to combat climate change when he was scheduled to appear at a fundraiser hosted by Andrew Goldman, co-founder of the gas company Western LNG, the very next day.
“He’s not a fossil fuel executive,” Biden responded.
When CNN host Anderson Cooper pointed out Goldman’s involvement in Western’s project to build a floating facility for liquefied natural gas off the coast of Canada, Biden fumbled to explain
“Well, I didn’t realize he does that,” the former vice president said. “I was told–if you look at the SEC filings, he’s not listed as one of those executives.”
Biden declared near the end of the town hall that if Goldman turned out to be involved in Western’s operations, the candidate would not “in any way accept his help.”
According to his campaign schedule, Biden hasn’t cancelled his plans to attend Goldman’s event.
During the discussion, Cooper said that Goldman didn’t have day-to-day responsibilities at Western. However, Splinter found company filings dated last year that listed Goldman as one of Western’s executives and a “long-term investor in the liquefied natural gas sector.”
Watch Biden addressing the fundraiser at the town hall below:
Later in the town hall, Biden said, “What I was told by my staff is that [the host] did not have any responsibility related to the company," referring to Western LNG, whose biggest project is a floating liquefaction facility for natural gas off the coast of British Columbia pic.twitter.com/lDzgcSfRfe
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 5, 2019
Oh, the humanity!!!
So now we’re dissing people who support good candidates because of their job titles?
Really??
I don’t care what the son-of-a-bitch does for a living if he’s helping to defeat trump.
And attending a fund-raiser doesn’t automatically mean bowing to the host’s demands.
Democratic purity tests are exhausting.
Biden may be explaining himself awkwardly, but I don’t think he’s wrong. Small donation campaigns are very nice, and might be enough to win a primary, but as long as we have the God-forsaken system we’re presently stuck with, big-money contributors are going to be important to Presidential campaigns. The point is to work the system to our advantage, then, after winning a few elections, go on to change the system. But we’ll never do that unless we actually win first.
Agree, but to the extent that Biden was uninformed about Goldman’s involvements is unsettling. There has to be some test as to whether accepting money is wise given its origins, which of course gives rise to the whole notion of ‘dark money,’ domestic or foreign. For example, would any candidate be smart in accepting money from porn kings??