VP Biden Invokes Son's Death in Contentious Exchange With Heckler
The heckler challenged Biden over policies on Kurdish allies and Turkey.
— -- Campaigning in Ohio for Hillary Clinton on Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden confronted a heckler who shouted in protest over some of the administration's policies in the Middle East.
"My American friends died!" the unidentified man said. "Why did you tell the YPG to go back across the Euphrates?"
The man was apparently challenging Biden on his recent warning while visiting Turkey that Syrian Kurdish allies would lose U.S. support if they didn't withdraw from territory captured from ISIS west of the Euphrates River around Manbij so that Turkish forces could commence a planned invasion to combat ISIS forces there.
"The deal was to get them into Manbij and to work ... They [would then] go back across the Euphrates so we could have special forces move in," Biden said. "That's why."
"My friend died!" the man responded.
"Will you listen?" Biden shot back. "So did my son, OK?"
Joe Biden's son Beau Biden, who served in Iraq for a year with the Delaware Army National Guard, died of brain cancer in May 2015.
As the crowd began to chant over the protester, Joe Biden urged them to stop and offered to speak with the man privately backstage. The vice president's office has not said whether the two met.