Hill.TV host Saagar Enjeti ripped former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday for saying that coal miners should learn how to code.
Enjeti argued that Biden is making the same mistakes former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton made in the 2016 election.
“His answer belies the utter contempt for the dignity of real work in this country and it buys into a false narrative that coding is the highest achievement that one can have in America,” Enjeti said.
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Monday, Biden referenced his role in the Obama-era programming skills initiative and floated the idea of retraining coal miners as computer programmers.
“Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well,” the former vice president told the crowd.
Enjeti said that Biden’s remarks were reminiscent of those made by Hillary Clinton in 2016. Clinton said during a town hall at the time that, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
“Biden seems truly content with trying to do a rerun of her worst hits as a candidate,” he said in reference to Clinton.
Democrats have long pushed the idea of shifting the U.S. away from its dependence on coal and other fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy. A number of 2020 Democrats, including Biden, have come out in support the Green New Deal, which aims to shift the U.S. to 100 percent clean energy by 2030.
The progressive proposal also aims to create thousands of green jobs in the process.
Despite Trump’s efforts to save coal jobs by rolling back regulations, coal jobs are declining. According to a 2019 report by the Brookings Insitute, the number of coal jobs has decreased by 40 percent over the past decade.
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