WASHINGTON (NewsNation) – President Joe Biden is dispatching senior administration officials to Michigan on Thursday to meet with Arab American and Muslim community leaders, a White House official told NewsNation.
The group will discuss a range of topics, including the war between Israel and Hamas.
Michigan’s large Arab American and Muslim population was crucial in helping Biden clinch the battleground state in 2020, where the president topped former President Donald Trump by 155,000 votes.
However, some of those voters have since expressed concern about Biden’s handling of the Middle East conflict.
During Biden’s recent multistop blitz through metropolitan Detroit to celebrate his United Auto Workers union endorsement, he was met with hundreds of protesters who were chanting, “Genocide Joe,” holding signs that read “Abandon Biden,” while others were waving Palestinian flags.
Some 57% of Americans disapprove of the way Biden is handling the Israeli-Hamas conflict, according to a poll by The New York Times and Siena College. Among Democrats, the poll found that 37% disapproved of Biden’s handling of the war. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Biden, speaking last week at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, said in addition to praying for peace in Gaza, he wants to find a solution to end the war.
“Not only do we pray for peace, we are actively working for peace, security, dignity for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people,” Biden said. “I’m engaged on this day and night and working, as many of you in this room are, to find the means to bring our hostages home, to ease the humanitarian crisis, and to bring peace to Gaza and Israel — an enduring peace with two states for two peoples.”
The senior officials traveling to Michigan on behalf of Biden include Steve Benjamin, director of the Office of Public Engagement; Tom Perez, director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs; Jon Finer, principal deputy national security adviser; Samantha Power, U.S. Agency for International Development administrator; Jamie Citron, principal deputy Director of the Office of Public Engagement; Dan Koh, deputy director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs; and Mazen Basrawi, National Security Council director for partnerships and global engagement.
