President Joe Biden posted a video on his newly created TikTok account slamming former President Donald Trump using a viral Valentine’s Day trend. But commenters on the video don’t want him sharing cutesy graphics. They want to remind him about Rafah, a city in Palestine that Israel attacked on Sunday.
The backlash Biden received for the subject of his TikTok is the latest example of his crossed wires with young voters—the specific demographic with which he is trying to connect via TikTok.
Over 68% of TikTok users are under the age of 35 and the vast majority are pro-Palestine. Biden is staunchly pro-Israel.
Biden’s Valentine’s TikTok took jabs at Trump by putting his policy positions into Valentine’s-style messages, a move Trump’s primary opponent, Nikki Haley, did as well today.
“I love you almost as much as Trump loves banning abortion,” one said. The other professes to love someone almost as much as “Trump loves telling Russia to invade Europe,” with a photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But viewers didn’t appreciate the joke in the wake of Israel’s attacks of Rafah, a Gazan city that the Israeli military had encouraged Palestinians to take refuge in while other parts of Gaza were attacked.
Prior to Sunday’s attack, at least 95 Palestinians had been killed in Rafah from Israeli attacks.
On Sunday, under the guise of rescuing hostages, Israeli conducted a new raid during America’s biggest sporting event, earning it the name Super Bowl Massacre. At least 67 people were killed in the most recent attack.
TikTokers flooded the president’s comments section with Palestinian flag and watermelon emojis and versions of “Rafah” to avoid their comment being censored by TikTok.
“What about Raaffaa?” a comment said, alongside three watermelon emojis.
“Save r@f&h,” another said.
“What’s happening in R4F4H today?” a commenter asked.
As for Biden, his unwavering financial support for Israel has earned him the nickname “Genocide Joe” on another social media platform.
