Climate Defiance, an activism group opposed to new oil and gas drilling, posted a pair of videos Tuesday and Wednesday of the group disrupting speeches from high-ranking White House officials.
The group crashed a Tuesday event attended by White House deputy chief of staff John Podesta and president Manish Bapna of the Natural Resource Defense Council, and a Wednesday speech by top White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi, according to Politico. The group posted videos of the two events on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, in which protestors can be heard chanting: “Keep your promise! No new drilling!” and “Keep your promise! No more drilling!”
Protestors chanting the first phrase successfully prevented Zaidi from beginning a speech in late March, in protest of the Willow Project decision, according to Reuters. Climate Defiance took credit for that protest in a Wednesday tweet, claiming it had “shut down or significantly disrupted” three consecutive Zaidi speeches.
BREAKING: today we descended on the keynote address of White House Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi. Unable to answer for his record of destruction, he snuck out through the back exit. pic.twitter.com/VQNsht5u4p
— Climate Defiance (@ClimateDefiance) April 26, 2023
The group intends to host a “mass turnout blockade” at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday, to protest the president’s failure to uphold a campaign promise to end new oil leasing on federal lands, according to its website. Several green groups have recently expressed frustration with the Biden administration’s climate performance, with younger activists particularly upset by the president’s approval of the Willow Project, a massive oil and gas project in Alaska, according to Axios.
Podesta appeared to attempt to engage with protestors according to the group’s heavily edited video depicting their protest at the Tuesday event.
“I appreciate their passion and we’re trying to do … create a transition that gets to net zero by 2050,” Podesta said, before a protestor interrupted him to say “[t]oo late!” When Podesta attempted to continue speaking, another protestor talked over him, saying “30 years too late!” before the group began to chant once again, drowning out an apparent event organizer.
The White House and Climate Defiance did not immediately respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.
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