Bill Clinton drew boos and heckling while campaigning for his wife at an event in Logan, W.Va., on Sunday.
The former president was talking about struggling Native American communities and “left behind” parts of America, when loud hecklers interrupted his train of thought.
“This is where they start screaming because they don’t want to hear this,” Clinton replied with a stern-looking Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., sitting behind him.
“The difference between us and them is we listen to them,” Clinton added as the hecklers appeared to leave the room while a mix of cheers and boos erupted from the audience.
Clinton was making campaign appearances in West Virginia this weekend on behalf of his wife in the run up to the state’s May 10 Democratic primary. According to a local news station, WVNS-TV, Logan officials wrote a letter to Manchin’s office earlier in the week saying that the Clintons “are simply not welcome in our town,” due to Hillary’s “anti-coal messages.”
Clinton released a plan in November to spend $30 billion to revitalize coal communities. But she faced backlash after a Democratic town hall in March where she said she hoped to phase out coal in favor of renewable energy.
“We’re gonna put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” she said.
Clinton tried later to walk back those remarks. But if the backlash her husband witnessed Sunday is any indication, she’ll have to do more to sway coal-dependent states like West Virginia where the industry has shed thousands of jobs in recent years, despite Bill Clinton’s success in the state, which he carried along with other Appalachian states in 1992 and 1996.
The former secretary of state is scheduled to meet with retired mine workers and community members Monday evening at a campaign event in West Virginia, part of her “Breaking Down Barriers” tour in Appalachia.
